


Hope It's Not Just a Sad Dream

by EarthsickWithoutYou



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friends to Lovers to Enemies to Lovers?, Hurt/Comfort, Redemption, Romance, Shameless Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-04-04 17:50:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14025471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthsickWithoutYou/pseuds/EarthsickWithoutYou
Summary: En route to the Emperor's flagship, Michael has an encounter with Lorca that changes their relationship...just in time for them to go walking right into a chaotic adventure that will reveal his true identity and challenge the ideals they each hold dear.





	1. We're in trouble now

He has no idea of the _other_ reason why she’s so nervous, and that’s nothing but a cold comfort to Michael now as his aqua gaze envelops her, his lips parted in an unasked question. Lorca’s trying to figure out her anxiety and calm it…does it look like she’d like to crawl out of her skin? Yes, but not in the way he might think. Against every iota of common sense, there’s another side of Michael that wants to burst from its cocoon and act on every forbidden desire about her Captain which of course she should repress.

Michael slips her wrist from his fiery touch, immediately reeling from the deprivation. She could shake her head, drop it into her hands, stave off the longing through some physical coping tactic, but he’s already caught onto quite enough of her frazzled state. If Lorca begins comforting her again, advising her with careful sensitivity in his rumbling drawl, she cannot predict her own response. 

_He isn’t like this with other people._

It stands out, that special attention which he’s shown her from the beginning. Looking at her with that overt admiration, even when he had to apply a bit of sternness to keep her in check, and even that felt good, too good…orders from your Captain weren’t supposed to make your heart squeeze while lava flooded your nervous system and your eyes widened helplessly. Why does Lorca set Michael apart, treat her with a protective care, determinedly seeking out the sources of her worries and alleviating them, putting her needs ahead of everything? Otherwise, he’s a deadset military strategist, more concerned with winning the war than winning over his crew, but he _wants_ Michael to like him. It’s important to him. _Why?_

That curiosity birthed a new perceptiveness in Michael that comes out to play when she is in Lorca’s presence. Feeling him nudging her forward, into positions where she can prove her worth and find the redemption she so craves. Listening as he treats his other officers with a barely-restrained, surly impatience, always seeming like he’s about to snap with the slightest display of incompetence. 

Michael thinks it has to be the loss of the Buran that has made him so recklessly focused on beating the Klingons, and she even considers his possible identification with Ash’s history as a reason why he originally took the lieutenant under his wing. But that mentorship had faded along with the smile on Lorca’s face as soon as he noticed how close Tyler and Burnham were getting. His jealousy was so poorly concealed that Michael would have had to have been blind not to notice it, and romantically indifferent to him not to experience an illicit thrill of arousal at the realization.

She tried at the time to shake off the feeling. Ash was everything Lorca wasn’t…sweet, innocent despite his past trauma, committed to a pure pursuit of Starfleet ideals, and when he wanted Michael, he pursued her openly.

Conversely, there was Gabriel Lorca…who was only sweet to Michael. Anything but innocent — the mere thought was laughable. His morality tarnished by witnessing the murder of his crew until he was bending rules left and right to gain vengeance. Covering his attraction to Michael under the flimsy guise of wanting to make the most of having a such a gifted former officer on board. Hiding from everyone, especially her.

Michael can still feel his thumb stroking her skin and it makes her shiver, flashing back to her treatment of him when she pretended to her Mirror double's crew that he was her prisoner. Sinking her whole hand into his soft brown hair with an unnecessarily long stroking motion, enjoying the chance to indulge her fantasies. How could she behave so rashly, so greedily? It was unlike her. But there was no denying that she’d used that scenario to get her hands all over Lorca as much as possible. He’d leaned into her touch, a shudder of pleasure going through him that he cleverly masked as pain and fear. Michael jerked his shoulder with a firm grip of her hand, bringing him towards her body so quickly, prompting a low, half-smothered gasp to escape Lorca’s lips. 

They could have lost themselves, forgotten everything but each other, swept up in the baffling, potent magnetic pull binding them closer the more Michael tried to push the feeling away.

But they held themselves together, ignored the incident’s significance afterwards. Except…he was freer with his touch now, also lavishing that open, almost pleading gaze on her more often. The way Lorca had held her hand to assure her she wasn’t alone in this Mirror Universe disaster, or in the aftermath of losing the love she thought she’d found with Ash to the insane reality of his inner self being corrupted by Voq…these fresh memories with Gabriel are _warm_ comfort.

Looking back, Michael thinks she ran to Ash for the sake of a fluttery infatuation and a pleasant friendship where she could curl up. There, Michael considered herself safe from falling in love with her conflicted, damaged, unpredictable Captain. Yet after everything else fell apart, who was here with her now? No matter what happened, it always seemed to come down to Michael and Gabriel, alone together. How much longer could she keep fighting it? If this was inevitable, why should she bother? Michael did not believe in destiny as Lorca did…or perhaps she was wrong about that as well.

They were on the way to confront a doppelganger of Phillipa Georgiou, yet another unfathomably painful and hard crisis to push through in order to save their crew. Lorca would certainly be put into an agonizer booth, and she had synthesized a medication to numb his pain, waiting till they were closer to arriving before she would inject it. He’d requested it knowing very well that he would be spending who knew how long under the weight of crushing torment, but that wasn’t taking up his thoughts. Instead, all of his focus stayed on Michael, on making her feel better.

_Just because I need to be my best self in order to win the day. Since my Mirror self is in the position to find the information we need about getting home, the responsibility rests on me, while the Captain is rendered almost powerless. Were he to neglect my clearly upset frame of mind and make no attempt to rouse my commitment to the mission, we would surely fail._

Lies. The worst kinds of lies: the ones you couldn’t even begin forcing yourself to swallow, since they melted away on your tongue as soon as you dreamed them up.

“I need you,” Gabriel remarks devotedly, drawing her eyes to his, locking onto her so easily. “ _You_ need you…” 

They could talk about the rather obvious fear which anyone would feel about encountering an evil version of their beloved lost Captain…seeing this Philippa wounds her beyond measure. It will be a struggle to summon words upon meeting her in person, but Michael knows very well how to bolster herself past those difficulties, despite how grateful she is to have Lorca’s support in this.

Indeed, she finds that she has little interest in canvassing the obvious at present. Michael caves, sinks into her baser instincts, feels his tide sucking her in and a rush of euphoria at the surrender. Giving into her id is an unaccustomed, powerful sensation, almost like a triumph. That secret yearning inside her is exerting its will now and she’s just along for the ride.

Michael comes back over to Lorca and crouches before him, fixing him with an inquisitive look that makes him quirk an eyebrow in surprise, asking quietly, intently, “What is it?”

“What do you mean, you need me?” Only seven words, that’s all it takes to tip over the edge. 

She’d thought she would be safe and happy with Ash, but he was a wolf underneath and her feelings for him split apart under the force of the revelation, never having been substantial enough to bear the disappointment or dread. And Michael had assumed that she would simply never act upon her feelings for Lorca, keep pushing them back into that corner of her brain where they blossomed stubbornly, pushing back. Out of necessity, logic, and seeking a good and proper life for herself, of course she would fight that absurd, unseemly would-be love. 

But, Michael recalls as he takes her fingers from where they rest trembling on his knee and caresses them in his closely bound hands, sometimes up is down. _Sometimes down is up..._

__

In lieu of a verbal answer, Gabriel uses his hold on her to urge her gradually forward, just as she lifts up against him, slipping under his arms, too distracted by the silent demand in his harshly beautiful eyes to stop and uncuff him. He doesn’t hesitate anymore, now that she’s invited him in with her question, with her movements. 

__

Lorca kisses Michael’s lips hungrily, with no tentative preamble of gentle nips or brushing of mouths. He must have imbibed to steel himself for the mission prior to leaving Discovery because his kisses are whiskey-spiked, utterly delectable. As an aching throb mercilessly seizes her core, Michael can’t be as astonished or scared as she should be by this development, or the low, needy moan which bursts from her. He goes on, stroking incessantly with his tongue as he tastes her, his satisfaction at the sensation quite apparent as he growls softly, sucking down on her lower lip. Michael sighs as Lorca’s roughly stubbled cheek presses against her throat just before he bites and applies claiming suction to the delicate skin of her neck, making her eyes snap open.

__

She stares at him for a beat and he gives her a knowing smile that’s absolutely smug, reflecting his justified certainty that she’s in heaven, right before he lays a generous, open-mouthed kiss to soothe the skin he’s punctured. “You like that,” Lorca murmurs as she clasps his face, rubbing along his jawline, then tracing the lovely, delicious curves of his lips with wondering fingers. “What else do you like?”

__

For her, this is no time for smiling. Michael ducks out from under his hands and retrieves the key to unclasp the cuffs, then climbs onto his lap as he holds her firmly. They take a few deep breaths, staring into each other’s eyes, before she presses her lips to the self-inflicted wound on his forehead the way she’s wanted to since she saw him bash himself into the door.

__

Lorca's breath catches in his throat at her tender action, his big, capable fingers rubbing all over her back. 

__

“I like that,” she confesses in a flurry of impossible honesty. To her own ears, her voice sounds heated and intense, a tone she’s never heard from herself. _What is he doing to me?_

__

“I like the way you melt for me," she admits. "You…the imperious warrior, the lost boy trying to transmute loss to victory, already knowing it’s an uneven exchange that’s only going to leave you broken-hearted all over again in the numb reality of the war’s end. I see it in you, you see it in me, the fear. _You_ , the last man who should let himself look at me with desire…you haven’t stopped since the first moment our eyes met. I don’t know why…it’s as if you wanted me in some way before knowing me, but not in some fleeting physical lust, you wanted all of me. I can’t begin to understand it, or my own inability to resist reciprocating, but I do know…that I like it.” 

__

He can’t believe this is real. Michael can tell by the way his brow creases in shocked incredulity, then smoothes out as hope and happiness brighten his already arresting eyes. How odd, that someone with such a distinctively luminous gaze should be allergic to bright external lighting, that its sudden introduction should send pain shooting through him. He doesn’t…match…she cannot entirely analyze him. His pieces are broken crookedly, perhaps in a manner which ensures they can't be fitted back together in any semblance of order or smoothness.

__

Everything about being with Ash had felt easy; _they_ had matched, until his secrets undid the facade of idealistic solace. When it comes to Lorca, it’s the jagged edges that cut so sweetly, that whet her appetite. _How strange…yet not unnatural, quite the opposite…_

__

What if Michael _does_ believe in destiny?

__

“That’s good,” Gabriel assures her, grasping her body possessively. He touches her waist, then lifts her top, biting his lip as he looks down at the smooth swath of stomach he’s revealed. She feels him hardening beneath her thigh and braces herself against his shoulders, knowing even as she gives him a sharply alarmed glance that this will only inspire him further. 

__

“Too much? Want me to stop?” Lorca gives her that smug-as-hell smile again, the one that ought to be offensively presumptuous if it weren’t for the way he sees right through to her wickedly vigorous lust for him.

__

If they are going to stop before this goes too far, now is surely the time. He will collect himself, let her go and sit in the pilot’s chair and stare into space for nonexistent answers, and it will be fine. The most likely outcome is that they will never discuss this again, outside of the occasional self-conscious blush at the foolish and unprofessional mistake they almost made, swayed by ill-advised longings in a hellish otherworld. That they’d nearly let the lawlessness of this alternate dimension morph duty into careless transgression. Over time, the temptation they’d felt would become understandable to them both, and maybe they’d even laugh about it, without vocalizing the reason for their amusement. Even in her imagined version of them moving on after _not_ satiating their desires, Michael can’t conceive of a time when they could talk about it without falling right back into each other’s eyes.

__

Yes, she could still be sensible, if she chose. But this would feel _so good_ right now. And she needs it, needs _Lorca._ Always has…

__

Always will? Is that…possible? 

__

He’s trying to read her mind again, and despite the passionate tension stretched taut between them, the look on his face is fucking _cute_ when he does that. Applying his brilliant scrutiny to a woman so complex that her layers constantly hold him in thrall as he strives to unfold and comprehend her…it’s a privilege to pique him so effortlessly. A reciprocal compliment. She’d be lying if she pretended that she hadn’t been furtively striving to get into his most secret thoughts from the outset.

__

“What’s that smile?” Gabriel asks, and she shakes her head at her own shamelessness.

__

“It means that the answer is no, I don't want you to stop,” Michael explains before unzipping her top and tossing it aside. She slides his leather jacket from his shoulders, then pulls off his own shirt, leaving him awestruck and unquestionably ravenous. 

__

“Michael…” he breathes her name as his eyes close, leaning into her caress once again as she runs a finger down his face before stroking his cheek with the back of her hand. She allows herself the indulgence of continuing the tactile enjoyment, stroking over the hard lines of his biceps, then kissing his chest, his heart slamming against her lips. 

__

_It would be nice to_ …she’s never done some of these things with anyone and is taken off-guard by the ideas that pop into her mind. She licks Gabriel’s skin right from the middle of his chest down to his abdomen where he’s breathing so quickly, his hands almost fumbling now at her bra straps because she’s distracting him, showing a boldness he hasn’t dreamed possible.

__

But something breaks in Lorca when Michael’s mouth reaches the waistband of his trousers and she looks, just once, with undisguised eagerness at the bulging hard-on that’s pressing fiercely against the black fabric. With a rapid and dominating series of movements which she watches excitedly, heart pounding, he tears off his boots and then lays Michael across the seats of the shuttle, resuming his oral exploration of her body as he presses his cock against her center and she loses her breath.

__

His tongue and his teeth take all sorts of liberties with her, piercing and wetting that soft spot on the inside of her elbow and then the skin stretched tightly above her hipbones, before he’s yanking her trousers down, pressing his nose against her thin, soaked underwear for a moment only. Gabriel sighs delightedly, then raises his face to her chest, splaying his hands over her breasts and squeezing tightly as her hips move upward, rubbing herself against his erection, anything to seek release, electricity coursing through her body faster than she can stand. 

__

“I’ve pictured this so many times and it was never this perfect,” Lorca confesses with a ragged gruffness in his voice that takes her captive. Opening her bra, he slips it off and then brushes his hand across her nipples, watching as they grow even stiffer before he swirls his tongue around them and sucks, driving Michael to a state of distraction that murders her patience.

__

She’s making more unfamiliar noises, supplicating moans and startled snaps of breath, prompting Lorca to tear her panties down, dipping his head between her thighs. Her legs are shaking so hard that he has to hold them steady, her fingers returning to one of their favorite places as they rove through his hair. There’s no question from her encouraging gestures that she wants him to go on, so he kisses her moist, glistening entrance and then licks right up it until she cries out his name and grabs his head with that same rough hold she used back on Discovery.

__

There’s that growl again, the one that blissfully reaffirms her awareness that his voice is the sexiest sound she’s ever heard. Lorca likes _that,_ so as he continues licking her, still studiously seeking out her sweet spot, he pauses just long enough to murmur against her with a divine vibration, “Say it again.”

__

Michael arches her back and says in something like a submissive whimper, “ _Gabriel…_ ” He keeps going, sliding in a finger to knead her clit until she repeats the word, this time in a throaty yell, “ _Gabriel!_ ”

__

The orgasm makes her legs quake even more intensely, and he runs his mouth over the buttery silk of her skin, first her ankles, then up her calves, knees and thighs, soothing her aftershocks as her eyes squeeze shut. A few deep breaths later, she has the wherewithal to open them again, seeing him looking back with undisguised adoration. She knew he wanted her and badly, but the love in him makes her more than a little dizzy.

__

“What now, baby?” Lorca asks devoutly, kissing her ear, then her cheek, easing back over to her lips with teasing precision. Michael’s heart leaps, logic never having felt further away.

__

“ _Baby?_ ” Although she repeats the pet name uncertainly, he sees her smile and puts his finger against it, spreading her already swollen lips before kissing them again. 

__

“Mmmhmm,” he says with a sanguine contentment twisted by brash ego until his tone is laced with sin. “ _Baby._ What is it that you want from me, Michael?” 

__

_He knows, he knows…he just wants to hear me say it…_ More than that. _He wants to make me say it._

__

She takes his face against her neck and whispers it in his ear, an entreaty, a command, a prayer. “Fuck me,” she insists, and he takes tighter hold of her body, the defenses tumbling from his face.

__

He’s wonderstruck and intoxicated by her, rubbing his cock against her entrance with that expression that assures her, every bit as much as his thick, throbbing length sinking inside her, that this is going to feel so very much better than “good.”

__

As they move together, her hips rising to meet his superbly building thrusts, Michael decides dreamily that she isn’t even going to use that weak and pathetic adjective again unless it’s to describe something as basically, passably affable as a meal particularly well-imitated by the replicator or the heat of the sun on her back during a walk outside.

__

Those experiences were benign, reassuring, routine. This is dangerous, nerve-wracking, life-changing, exquisite. Worst of all, best of all, so addictive.

__

There’s some sort of inconceivably skilled instinct in Lorca, helping him to find the exact angle, speed, depth, _everything_ to make Michael come — but in due time, only once he’s covered her body with each variation of tingle and flavor of insistent euphoria that he can possibly evoke. And that turns out to be quite a lot. She places her hands on his broad chest, loving the slick of the sweat on his skin, just not positioned properly to lick it, but before the thought fully crystallizes, an orgasm overtakes her and she tips her head back, mouth open though she is unable to make a sound against the hot spasm disintegrating her. Her name is back on his lips, along with a definitive “ _Yes,_ ” just before he explodes within her and crashes his face against her shoulder. 

__

Michael encircles Gabriel with her arms, but he has to apply some considerable effort to the act of not crushing her under his weight, managing to shift to his side, remaining gripped in her arms, his flushed brow wedged between her neck and face. They’re panting. Reality is soon going to intercede; there is nothing more they can do to fend it off.

__

The shuttle creeps closer to the flagship and there is work to do.

__

“You’re making me question everything I’ve ever held to be true,” Lorca mutters darkly, and she’s perplexed. What exactly does that mean? His voice is softer than ever, melting against her flesh, half-kissing her with the words.

__

“Who are you?” Michael can’t help asking. She knows everything about him; she knows nothing.

__

When she gets another look at his face, he’s desperate, as if he wants to cling to this moment and never let go. He’s at cross-purposes; something he’s holding back from her is bruising him within, making him fear she’ll change her mind, reject him. 

__

Yet despite the confusion that fills her intimidatingly with the mere thought of what the hell they are actually going to do about each other, especially once the Discovery finds its way home, his next words fill her with absolute certainty that they are sincere.

__

“I’m the man who loves you, Michael.”

__


	2. Wicked games, up in flames

She’ll know by now, of course. The truth about him. Lorca doesn’t want to care, tries to take the fact in stride, assume that Michael will come around once she understands the full breadth of his plan. 

He tries to bite past the fear that she’ll never see things his way, never comprehend or espouse his Terran philosophy or want to stand by his side ruling over all they survey. It’s especially hard when that fantasy has been all he has had to keep him going for so many months.

Normally, Lorca enjoys the occasional jolt of pain, thrives on it. It’s the survivor in him, empowered by his high threshold until he’s proud that the bumps, cuts and bruises remind him he’s alive rather than annoying or weakening him. But now, under the nervous onslaught of his teeth, his lip just smarts, throbbing unpleasantly, and he has the distinct impression that when it comes to _this_ Michael Burnham, all his old habits are decidedly threatened.

Talking to her over the imperial flagship's comms, Gabriel can hear the tiny waver of anxiety in his own voice, confirmed when Michael practically spits her announcement that she won’t be his. 

_So what’s the point, then?_

What’s the point of anything, all of his dreams? They seem so insubstantial without her. How can it have come to this? He is so far from being a sentimental man that the irony should be hilarious. 

And now, leading his people to confront the Emperor, Gabriel knows none of them suspect he’s been compromised. Even Ellen probably assumes there’s some robotic implant where his heart should be, for all the passion he’s evidenced in the past. And following the metaphor to its natural conclusion, his followers get off on the fact that he’s a ticking time bomb. His volatile instability represents his alpha status as a Terran leader. 

People like Gabriel Lorca _get things done_ , rise above the shuddering masses to positions of power. Those that kneel before him will have it all: a small but valuable taste of that power; the lush satisfactions of material comfort; the basic certainty that they’ll probably live a good while longer.

The others march confidently behind him as he gets closer to this collision, one he once craved that now seems more like an unfortunate necessity — the _bad_ kind of pain, the worst—

The way she will look at him with those wide eyes, pupils flashing hatred, it’s a fucking unbearable concept. Lorca couldn’t give a damn about anyone else he had to hurt to get back here, but it almost kills him that he betrayed Michael.

_This must be how the wolf would feel if he fell in love with Red Riding Hood. All his gluttony vanquished by the light of her presence. Then the darkness of the forest feels so cold and repulsive, the razor edge of his own fangs an offense. He realizes that he's belonged in those woods for a reason because glancing down at his own blood-matted fur, he cannot fail to see that he too is repulsive._

With the other Michael Burnham, it had been so very different. Of course, she was beautiful, brilliant, a natural leader. A goddess, eventually _his_ goddess. Yet how shallow that affair seems in retrospect, compared with his feelings for this woman whom he’d met on the other side of the only reality he’d ever known. The maddening detail here is that it’s the one quality where the two Michaels diverge which ensures he’s a fool for just one of them. The kind one, the good one.

Lorca’s never seen anyone use compassion and empathy as _strengths_ , nor a single person who could cling steadfast to principles he used to think idiotic, making it all look like the most divinely indisputable poetry. Michael can cow those who are beneath her ethics because she _is_ so unimaginably powerful in this new way that staggers him. In all her virtue, Michael is an intimidating wonder to behold: resplendent. Magnificent. 

Yet she’d fallen for him, a walking human disaster. Wonders truly never ceased.

The hurt in Michael, when he reaches their destination and she stares Gabriel down, is worse than he’d thought it would be. And that is because she’s determined to hide the heartache, the disappointment. Disillusion. They’re all there, trembling over her berry-bright lips as she presses them together, stuck in the fierce set of her jaw, escaping through her resentful glare. 

_So this is it. Being in love. Huh. I kind of hate it._

Michael stands there next to Pippa like they’re friends or something now; what a fucking joke. The Emperor — soon to be _former_ , distinctly un-grieved Emperor, if he has anything to do with it — has committed atrocities which make Lorca look like a boy scout by comparison.

Destiny has a funny way of twisting your perception; Fate must get some kind of perverse kick out of introducing you to the wrong people at the right time and vice versa, until you start making mistakes based on faulty evidence, out of flat-out circumstantial convenience. Like Michael actually teaming up with Pippa, when the woman represents everything she heartily despises. 

_Actually, it’s flattering that she’s this mad at me. No one can summon that kind of rage unless they care for the one they’re expending it on. I’d be aroused, if I wasn’t so worried she’s going to stay mad._

Michael’s changed her mind about staying with Gabriel, or so she says. He’s too smart to trust her word when she agrees to remain with him if it guarantees the survival of Discovery’s crew, but the tempting concept of her honesty gets the better of him anyway. _I can feel it happening, she’s reeling me in so easily, but I can’t stop myself._

“Just to be clear, I’m only offering my mind,” Michael says coldly, instantly occasioning him a hundred sultry flashbacks of her body underneath him, compliant to his demanding grip. He blinks the images back and maybe she assumes the light just hit his eyes the wrong way, causing a momentary twinge. Due to his string of crimes and history of deception, perhaps Michael would never guess that Gabriel’s dying inside and she is the reason.

His smile hurts again as he nods his agreement. Then it’s time to contact Discovery and inform them of the arrangement, but this brings another strange and annoying revelation. When Lorca tells the bridge crew that he’s come to respect them all, that he would even welcome them into his regime if he ever thought they would want that…he’s not lying. Not even about Saru. He can look at that damn Kelpien now without once thinking of him as a future appetizer.

_This can’t go on, this infernal weakness._

Lorca expects the attack from Pippa and Michael, so it is easy enough to fall into his old battle instincts, that is until he’s got his arms around Burnham again and she lets out an involuntary, very quiet, _almost_ suppressed moan. His hold on her is supposed to be threatening, but all he wants to do is cover her with kisses. Michael takes advantage of his confusion by breaking out of hers just a second sooner than he can, slamming her boot heel down on his toes with brutal force.

She incapacitates Gabriel just long enough to train her phaser on him, then she says somewhat breathlessly, “We would have helped you get home if you had asked. That’s who Starfleet is, who _I_ am. It’s why I won’t kill you now.”

 _Of course you won’t, baby._ His face crumples in bliss, falling back into her eyes. So. Fucking. Distracted.

Perhaps “Who are you?” is a question Lorca ought to direct at his damn self.

“But _I_ will!” Pippa roars, leaping up from behind him just as Michael shoots forward, evades the sword and tackles the Emperor, taking her to the ground and holding her there, a hand wrapped around her neck. Georgiou never could have fathomed an argument from Michael about killing Lorca and she’s stunned and enraged as her weapon hits the floor with a loud clang.

Gabriel reaches down and removes the sword from Pippa’s grip, since the oxygen Michael is cutting off from her throat has loosened her fingers. Michael doesn’t bat an eye at his action. He gets a fleeting thrill from this clear indication that Burnham knows he will not hurt her. She knows _that_ much about him, at least.

“You’re not going to go on simply killing people whenever you lose your temper,” Michael commands Pippa like an adorably sensible school-teacher. Gabriel fights back a smile because next she returns her warrior angel eyes to his lost blue gaze. “And that goes for you, too. Throw that on the ground.” 

He hesitates, looks around. The bodies of his followers litter the floor, last dumbstruck expressions illuminated by the crackling, blinking light. His heavy breathing puffs his chest as pride battles the burning desire to cede control to his love.

“I _said,_ ” Michael continues, standing and placing her foot on Pippa’s throat until the Emperor passes out, “Throw that sword away.”

She grabs the collar of his jacket and tugs him one step forward. He lets go of the sword and it clatters to the floor. Lorca stares pleadingly into her face, heartbeat hammering.

Michael presses her badge and says with impossible calm, “Burnham to Discovery. Three to beam up.” 

_*************************************************************************************_

This brig is so boring it makes Lorca wish it had an agonizer booth. He has nothing to do but pace and wait, forming numbingly disappointing theories about Starfleet’s plans for him. Distantly, he wonders what will happen to Pippa, not that he cares; he just guesses that she won’t get the same treatment as him. Most likely, he’ll end up in whichever prison they send the worst of the worst to, but at least then Gabriel will have something to _do,_ plotting his escape. He can’t want that now, not when he’s still on the same ship with Michael. 

It takes days before she comes to see him, but he’s up on his feet way too fast when she finally walks in. His spirits sink as she opts to stay well back from the force field walling him in.

“We’re nothing if not the king and queen of irony,” he jokes feebly, gesturing down at his ugly, slouchy grey jumpsuit. “You were wearing prison garb just like this the day we met. Right away, I knew you were better than that, so special.” Lorca lifts his hands and moves them, palms-up, as close as he can to the boundary without being zapped. How can he help wanting to press his hands against the window between them? Not being able to even touch the division is an unspeakable source of frustration.

Michael gives a short, humorless laugh, the quick downward tilt of her face showing that his words have hurt her, which was the last thing he’d intended. “Are you so convinced of my gullible nature that you actually think I’ll _ever_ believe your lies again? You didn’t think of me as special right away. You already expected me to be special because of your relationship with my mirror universe double.”

He sees her fury getting a bit too tainted with jealousy until she’s nauseated, hand flying to her stomach, and _oh_ — what he would give to comfort her. Lorca considers slamming his fist into the force field to alleviate his woe, but he might get knocked out and miss the rest of this precious visit. Not worth it. 

Gabriel can only touch Michael with his words now, the very last things she’s likely to believe. But still, he has to try. 

“I know it’s hard to understand how I could have had two completely different relationships, an infatuation with her and the deep, abiding love I feel for you, but I’m asking you to accept the truth simply because it _is_ just that. True. What we had together, what we felt on that shuttle was real, is real…it’s everything to me.” Lorca gives her his best “let’s just be reasonable” face, almost forgetting how much she loves to be right.

“That’s only because you have lost everything else!” Michael’s hands become tight fists at her sides and her eyes grow improbably even shinier, glossed with tears she must hate herself too much to shed. Or does she merely hate him? It is just so hard to tell. 

Lorca lowers his hands. “And why do you think that is, Michael? Why did I just throw my whole life away along with that sword? I could’ve gotten the better of you in battle, or at least I had a good enough chance if I tried. I threw away an _Empire_ for you and you’re still not satisfied.” 

She scoffs. _Yeah, I took it a little too far with that last line. Maybe I should try some more humble pie._ Whatever it took. 

_How do you even talk to a woman when you’re not trying to trick her, or yourself?_

“I regret that I had to lie to you during our time here on Discovery, but you need to know that at some point I simply wasn’t lying anymore. Or, I guess it makes more sense to say that I stopped lying to you and started deceiving myself.” Lorca realizes that he’s learning the whole truth right along with her, within the flow of his confession. 

“I liked this version of me so much better, Captain Gabriel Lorca of the USS Discovery. I used to pretend to be him all the time, especially with you, when it felt the best. But when I finally got the chance to go back home and enact my grand plan, I told myself it was too late to turn back, and that I was being a lovestruck moron, that I should be embarrassed of the way I felt and how I was changing. Imagine being raised with the Terran belief system carved into your brain — how do you think you would have turned out? With what capacity for comprehending any real value of goodness would you have confronted the universe?” Gabriel watches his speech sinking in. Michael frowns, but her fingers stretch back out, a slight release of tension but not an insubstantial victory given the circumstances. Still, he’s wounded himself by the sight of Burnham’s nails leaving half-moons on her palms. 

“I think we know the answer. You knew the other me. She was ruthless.” It’s crazy, the way Michael looks for all the world as though she blames herself for that. 

“Right, but she wasn’t _you._ She was one version of who you could have become under entirely different circumstances, and I’m telling you that what’s changed my life is…how much I like myself when I’m with you. That you’ve opened up this whole other side of me, one I was afraid to embrace until it was too late. You've _taught_ me, Michael, inspired me to better myself and dream of a future with you. I can still see that future, even now, even when-- _Please,_ don’t give up on us.” 

“I already have,” Michael says determinedly, breaking his heart. “I came here today to tell you that we will never meet again. Because…I can’t.” She starts the announcement with such righteous indignation and ends it utterly forlorn. That sadness thickening her voice rekindles his hope. 

_You really are a sentimental idiot._ And by now, Gabriel likes being one far too much to stop. 

She’s leaving forever. Fighting back his volcanic tidal wave of distress, Lorca tries and fails to process the awful moment. The old version of him is screaming, _make her stay! Manipulate her, brainwash her if you have to; it doesn’t matter._ Licking his lips at the beguiling thought of giving in to his evil proclivities and taking the easy way back into her affections, he already knows that his more finely developed feelings will never allow such a measure. Even if he is behind bars, there is no question that his eventual escape is inevitable. And when that day comes, will he find Michael just to mistreat her, after missing her with such a sick, sore resonation, day after day? He already knows how it will be when he's sent away, incarcerated, unable to see her for who knows how long, how that will _feel..._. No, he never wants to cause her pain again; in fact, he’s driven to protect her — just like always. 

At the last possible second, he summons the vocabulary to match his passion and calls out, “Michael…when we made love, I’ll never forget it. I’ll never be that happy again.” 

Michael doesn’t look back but Lorca knows that her eyes are lost now, too. Doesn’t change the fact that she’s still going out that door, and he really might never see her again. “I’ll never forget it either,” she says. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title taken from the song "Tennis Court" by Lorde


	3. Living in the state of dreaming

“Michael, I _never_ beat your time. What’s going on?” Sylvia pants, jogging in place by Burnham’s side. 

Sighing and resting her back against the wall, Michael watches the typically dutiful strides of fellow officers passing in the corridor. She takes a long sip from her water bottle and then slicks its cold condensation across her flushed forehead. 

Cold in her throat, icy droplets beading her face, but she still feels the fever. _His_ fever. Lorca…

Michael cannot get him off her mind.

It’s nothing new; he’s always had this hold on her, exuding it like a net sprung over a butterfly until all she could ever do was flutter up to stare at his aqua-bright eyes, poking up through the holes in the trap he’d made so that she could better hear his sweet honey voice traipsing over words finer than gold. 

Dealing with her implacable tenderness for Lorca…it is so much harder now, not just because she more fully understands the dark conflict within him. She’d had no illusions when she chose to be with him on that shuttle. Michael had been well aware that he was a haunted man about whom lies hung like beautifully irresistible shadows.

“I’ve also never seen you anywhere near this distracted,” Tilly adds, ceasing all motion as she analyzes her friend’s face. Michael lurches forward and starts walking away, steps jagged and unsure, Tilly falling into place by her side.

Now that they have come to a place of relative peace, ended the war, moved on with their lives, moved on from _him_ , it’s hit her. Over the last few days, after bidding farewell to Ash and watching L’Rell begin her dubious reign, seeing Discovery’s crew adjusting, growing from their losses and hard lessons, Michael started getting bogged down in the feeling that she was being left behind. They were all going to be just fine without Captain Lorca. Her heart had never left the shuttle. Or else Lorca carries her heart with him still. She cannot decide.

Distracted, _again_ , she walks right into Paul Stamets, who looks immediately surprised by the strange expression on her face. She’s out of it, and Michael Burnham has never been anything less than sharply clear, even at her lowest ebb, even when she was seen by fellow and prospective colleagues as nothing more than a criminal and a traitor.

_Aren’t I still a traitor, if I cannot stop loving Lorca?_

“You okay, Burnham?” Lt. Stamets inquires with unusual solicitude, making her realize she must look pretty bad. He perches his fingers on her shoulders, steadying her.

“I don’t think so,” Sylvia puts in. Michael can’t summon the energy to tell Tilly not to speak for her. These days, she’s rather grateful not to have to put in the trouble to process what is going on or verbalize it.

Luckily, the journey to Vulcan has been uneventful. Otherwise, her status as a newly minted flake might have gotten her in a good deal of trouble.

Still, it strikes her that Tilly’s statement shouldn’t be allowed to stand, so she says robotically, “I am fine.”

“Yup, not fine. Let’s talk,” Stamets decides, steering Michael towards his lab with his usual know-it-all attitude.

“I do not need to talk,” she argues feebly.

“Well, it’s us, or else you could talk to a doctor? Or maybe Admiral Cornwell?” Paul proposes, the latter a threat which Michael resents. 

“I never took you for a tattle-tail,” Michael accuses coldly, and he cocks his head to one side, distinctly weirded out by her tone and demeanor.

“I’m just looking out for you, Burnham. Something’s up, now tell us what it is.”

“Maybe we can help,” Tilly suggests as the three of them sit down around one of the consoles designed to monitor the mycelium network. This has always been their special place, the spot where their bond as a friendly trio was forged in fire. 

Stamets flicks his hand out at the busy cadets dotting the room. “Scram,” he commands briskly, “Call it a lunch break. Come back in a half hour.” Crossing his arms and stretching his legs out, he strikes a casually impatient posture which clashes with Tilly’s uptight, nervous one. Sylvia’s back is rod-straight and she drums her fingers on the console until Michael has to reach out and still them.

“You do not need to worry about me, Tilly,” Michael assures her, glancing over at Paul to add, “And _you_ do not need to keep an eye on me in case I am ‘cracking up.’ Perhaps you think you recognize the signs.”

“Perhaps I do,” Stamets counters, “And perhaps you know perfectly well that it’s not just about keeping an eye on you. Are you seriously gonna make me _say_ it, Burnham?”

Michael raises her eyebrows, intrigued, and leans in a bit closer. 

“Fine! God, you can be insufferable. I think of you as a friend. I care if you’re okay.” Stamets scowls to prove his point. A tiny smile plays about Michael’s lips as Tilly lets loose a high-pitched giggle.

“No, I’m sorry, Lieutenant, it’s just…your face!” She smothers the rest of her laughter and Paul rolls his eyes.

“Insufferable,” he confirms emphatically. “Now, Commander, you were just telling us why your head's in the storm clouds of late?”

“Well, since we’re friends,” Michael can’t help quipping. Her cheeks feel odd from the stretch of her grin and she realizes it’s been weeks since anyone made her laugh. Is she in some sort of depression? As Stamets gives a mock bristle and she considers that he might actually be pleased to have amused her, she goes on cautiously. “I have to ask that what I divulge does not leave this room. It is disturbing and quite…intimate in nature. However, if confiding in you both provides me any peace of mind or indeed a solution to my problem, I’ll be very grateful.”

“Our lips are sealed,” Tilly promises, even more concerned than ever.

“As long as no one is in danger from whatever you share,” Stamets quibbles, making Sylvia punch him in the arm. “What?”

“No one is imperiled except perhaps me, due to the apparent loss of my common sense,” Michael clarifies. _Where to begin…_ She clasps and unclasps her hands, thinking.

There’s only one way to say it and that’s to get right to the point.

“I slept with Captain Lorca while we were in the mirror universe, before I learned his secret,” Michael blurts, cheeks immediately reddening. But damn. It feels great to get those words out. She exhales, the breath long, shaky, and a little relieved from the solitary burden which has troubled her so deeply.

“Wait, _what?_ ” Tilly’s face is even redder than Michael’s. She was not expecting this.

“You mean, you were both feeling tired and stressed out, and you bunked down together for the night, maybe even indulged in a few off-the-books cuddles,” Stamets posits, wavering his hand in the air, “ _Or_ ….”

Michael nods to his second implication. “Or,” she admits.

“But…why?” Tilly struggles to understand. “I mean, you had only just broken up with Ash? Was it a rebound thing?”

“I’m afraid there is no such easy excuse for my lapse in judgement,” Michael confesses, sliding a finger under her collar to loosen it. Everything feels like a constriction these days, and every day feels lonelier without him. It’s madness.

“From the outset of my acquaintance with the Captain, I developed powerful feelings for him. My relationship with Lt. Tyler was undertaken in a specific attempt to prevent myself from falling in love with someone far more inappropriate.”

“Well, as it turns out, they’re almost even,” Stamets says drily, earning himself a swat from Tilly which he dodges. “Cut that out. Go on, Burnham.”

“I wanted to be in a safe, healthy romantic relationship. I don’t know why I couldn’t just be alone. It certainly is not as though I have actively sought or remotely relied upon intimacy in the past. It began with knowing Lorca, and…I never did get over the emotions I sought to conquer.”

“So, when Ash turned out to be… _not_ Ash, it was pretty easy for you to go running right into Lorca’s arms,” Sylvia reasons, her face crumpling in sympathy. “God, Michael, I’m so sorry. But how could you have known? Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

“Yeah, I mean it was a reckless indiscretion, but it isn’t as though Lorca’s betrayal is your fault. Are you upset because you didn’t anticipate his true nature?” Stamets watches Michael’s head shake and looks more confused than ever.

“Again, I cannot relax in the presence of any such truths. It would be comforting indeed if I could put my state of distress down to regret that I didn’t guess his identity or plans. I’m afraid the truth is…I knew he was lying. I knew something was wrong. But part of me did not care because—” Here, Michael gives a hollow laugh. She cannot say the words.

“Because you loved him,” Tilly finishes. It’s not posed as a question.

“Yes,” Michael nods. “I loved him, and worse yet, I think I still do. These feelings are unlike any I have ever experienced, and I find that my outrage with myself at their continuation is driving me to extreme levels of anxiety.”

“You can’t help how you feel,” Sylvia points out sympathetically. “No one can. It’s what you do about it that counts.”

“I think you need to let him go,” Paul says with a jerky nod. “Let him go, Burnham. He’s a toxic user and if he wasn’t locked up for his treachery, he wouldn’t hesitate to twist every one of your feelings to his advantage.”

“I worry that I’ve become weak,” Michael frets, shaking her head at her own infuriating folly. 

“Holding yourself together when you’re falling apart…do you even know how much strength that takes?” Stamets asks almost gently. He’s not used to talking about feelings with friends, and this conversation is far from easy for him. But having never had friends quite like those he’s found on Discovery, now he is willing to try.

“He’s right,” Tilly concurs. “Don’t forget, we were all betrayed by Lorca. We all feel some part of that same anger that we didn’t see through him, that same hurt that he broke our hearts by not being the Captain we all relied on, but…Michael, I think your problem is that you _did_ see through him, and you loved him anyway. You need to forgive yourself.”

“You’re right,” Michael replied, “That kind of forgiveness is a journey, and I would do well to get started.”

_I didn’t love him “anyway.” I loved him because he was different. I loved him because he was dark, complicated and strong…brilliant and untouchable to everyone but me. I loved him because…._

_No._

_I love him._

*****************************************************************************************

The dream is different every night, but the overall context is always excruciatingly identical.

Michael is in bed with Gabriel Lorca and he is fucking her, long, slow -- at first -- and hard. 

The black silk sheets are slick with sweat and her own arousal, and she clings to him, crying out in uncontainable joy. Sometimes when she’s on her hands and knees, she misses being able to touch him too much. But it’s worth it somehow as he holds her around her stomach and slams his cock in, growling his satisfaction at her tight perfection. Most embarrassing of all are the dreams in which he spanks her…driving his thick length in to the hilt before pulling all the way out and slapping her bottom, tormenting her with the pattern until her impatient cries make him merciful. Then he takes her hardest and fastest of all, until they can do nothing but grab onto each other afterwards, a needy snuggle belying the frantically aggressive side of their sex, silent except for their pounding hearts and chaotic breaths, limbs tangled and tingly. 

On other occasions, he wants her on top, simply wants to watch her throw her head back and ride him, especially if it means he can cup her breasts and follow her motions even more closely while he toys devilishly with her nipples, licking his lips, bright eyes glazed and so very hungry.

The most heartbreaking dreams are the ones which feature him making love to her exactly the same way in which he did it on the shuttle…just holding her down and gazing adoringly into her eyes with a shocked, mysterious smile as he plunges in and out with a calculated, gradually mounting rhythm. Those orgasms are the most intense, and she _always_ comes in these dreams. It’s the hot jolt of pleasure at her core that forces her eyes open and leaves her to deal with the consequences of her unconscious mind’s wicked dalliance.

When he’s especially rough with her, she tries hard to make herself forget how much she liked it. How even though he was domineering and relentless, there was love for Michael so painstakingly woven through his every move. How it was her complete confidence in her safety and his protective nature over her that let her deeply enjoy the more risque elements of the sex, the way he hoped she would. And she wonders how she conjured these very specific images, why she thinks it would ever be like that with Gabriel. Why she would _want_ it to be…

Is it what she thinks he might have liked to do with her, eventually? Is it that she and Lorca are much more alike than Michael thought possible? She’s certainly never entertained thoughts like this about anyone else.

Whatever the reason, she often cries, though sometimes her sadness is fleetingly soothed by masturbation, whispering his name again and again, wondering when, if ever, this will stop.

Tonight, when it’s all over, Michael shoves her cheek into her pillow and thinks how much better she might feel if she were to turn her face right into it and scream with all her might. But she’s afraid doing that might become an addiction as well, and with an almost wryly humorous realization, she thinks it would be pointless to add a sore throat to the rest of her problems.

The months go by in a painful blur and she still can’t understand why.

One morning, she wakes up especially defiant towards Gabriel and makes a vow to hide these feelings away no matter how strongly they persist. If her heart insists on betraying her just as badly as he did, then she will rely on pride.

*****************************************************************************************

Gabriel winces and grunts with the force of his orgasm, sliding his hand a few more times over his cock as the waves roll over him, imagining, as is his habit, that Michael is the one touching him. Grateful at least that he has no cellmate, he sniffs in defeat when his fantasy ends, the vision of Michael which he’s summoned dissipating in the cold morning light that slips in through the tiny window above his slender cot. He clothes himself in hurried aggravation, determined to set aside the apparently inevitable indulgence with which he’s greeted each day apart from his love.

If he’s ever to see her again, ever prove that he’s more than a callous, one-dimensional villain, he’s got to get out of this dump. To that end, Lorca has been making friends, really laying on his special brand of charm to manipulate any valuable assets into helping with his plan. Yet as the door slides open, revealing of all things Commander Saru of the USS Discovery, Gabriel takes a moment to wonder if the solution to leaving this depressing tin can is going to be a lot easier than he assumed.

“Mister Saru,” Lorca drawls in an ironic imitation of his “Starfleet Captain tone,” prompting the Kelpien to shoot him a cold, resentful glare. 

“Gabriel Lorca,” Saru greets him, patting at his neck with delicate irritation. 

“To what do I owe the honor of this visit?” Lorca’s eyes crinkle as he smiles cordially. “If you came to try out the gruel, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. It’s definitely a little closer to _glue_.”

“Simply stow aside your typical quips and every other attempt to deflect attention from your woeful crimes,” Saru warns. “I am here out of sheer and frankly unfortunate necessity.”

“You intrigue me, Mister Saru,” Gabriel admits, rising from his cot and walking to the window to place his elbow on the dull gray sill, resting his thumb at his lips. 

“A faction of Terran militants have crossed over into our Universe and incited war with the Federation,” Saru elaborates, keeping his distance. It occurs to Lorca that his former first officer is more than just discomforted by him…Saru is afraid of him. He’d never admit this aloud, but Gabriel hates that.

Does his whole crew…that is, does all of the Discovery crew feel the same? Does _she_? Saru was saying something about a Terran incursion. Ha. Hardly a surprise.

“It was only a matter of time,” Lorca notes breezily, covering his stress with a shaky veneer of nonchalance. “Did you all really think the Terran Empire would take one look at the resources and wonders of your universe and lose out on the chance to conquer you? Especially the spore drive. Did they get that from you yet?”

“They have not,” Saru informs him crisply, placing his hands behind his back, getting a little less twitchy. As if there’s something about Lorca’s behavior that is familiar enough for him to feel less threatened. Gabriel wishes they would all remember that he had done more than make mistakes when he was with them. He’d practically won the war for them. Did his flaws blot out his accomplishments so entirely?

Yes, he’d been brash and surly, never shown them all how he’d come to care…it was too hard to show it or admit the ways in which he’d changed, least of all to himself. With Michael, it was different. He couldn’t hide from her soft, insightful eyes, nor her strong, brilliant nature, pulling him from his shell of false Terran pride and myopic insistence on winning old, stale battles just to prove now-moot points. She shone a light on him and he wanted to stay there, where it was warm.

Michael had taught him what it meant to be a Starfleet officer. That speech about how she’d live and die by their laws despite being stripped of rank and jailed for life…it had started a fire in him which, try as he might, Lorca had not been able to extinguish. 

He’d had no idea there was so much more to life than decadently luxuriating in the glories of war and victory. Now that he is growing and learning, it is too late. Yet still. Lorca wants to try. He wants to be able to respect himself, maintain the fragile illusion that one day, Michael will forgive him. 

It’s with that goal in mind that he asks, “And you’re here because you’d like my insight on Terran war strategy as well as probably the who’s who of those currently clogging your stars with destruction.” He glances at Saru’s short nod and gives one of his own. “I’d be all too happy to assist. Saru, I’m…glad you’re here.”

“That makes precisely one of us,” Saru retorts, looking with disdain at Gabriel's scruffy appearance. “And before we go, be sure to button your trousers.” He stalks off haughtily, waiting outside Lorca’s cell and chatting with the guard. 

Gabriel yanks the button through its hole, unable to resist the thrill of excited anticipation rushing through him. There might be a better destiny within reach…maybe he is more than a waste of space whose only previous game plan had been a prison break with no clue what lay beyond. Straightening his shirt, he runs his hand over his stubbled jaw and then grits his teeth against the brighter sunshine that bursts through the pane above. 

_I have to believe in myself. The only other option is suicide. I have to be more than I assumed, more than they fear. But what do I do to prove it?_


	4. Crawling with the wolves

Back onboard Discovery, no one speaks to Lorca. They act as if he isn’t worth the effort, not unless necessity compels them to bark an order or elicit some intel from him like he’s a damn replicator handing out Terran secrets. Standing on the bridge, completely outside their world, he feels the weight of his isolation. It’s better to avoid glancing to the Captain’s chair which Saru now occupies in temporary stead. Gabriel watches, back against the wall, arms crossed, knee bent and boot planted behind him. There they all are, his crew, going about their duties with the rapid adeptness which _he_ trained them to hone. 

Actually, this gives him an unwelcome insight into how these people must have felt serving under him all those months. Hasn’t he essentially treated them the same, paying them as little attention as he could? At first, it was because he truly saw them as nothing more than idiot pawns for him to manipulate, but later…he did not want to see them as better than that, as worthy proteges, potential friends…Gabriel Lorca did not _have_ friends, after all. It became necessary to try to keep his cold front sturdily intact, which had never previously required much effort.

Michael was right, too. Around her, he melted, right away. Always.

“Specialist Lorca,” she greets him, her voice brittle and her posture tense. Glaring down at his foot against the wall as she steps out of the lift, she shoves it down with her hand. Then he gazes helplessly into Michael’s big, gorgeous brown eyes, remembering how soft her smooth skin had felt beneath his rugged fingers during their only intimate encounter, the way she sighed at his attentions before getting louder…the unique curiosity between them when they debated in the early days of their acquaintance…the way it thrilled him to watch her analyze him, unable to fit him to her logic. Her delicious frustration still excites him. But he respects her enough to hold himself back from every instinct she awakens within him.

“Commander Burnham,” Gabriel greets her nonchalantly, though he shoots her a pointed look when she touches his boot. “Congratulations on the restoration of your rank. It’s wonderful to see you, it’s…been too long.”

Inwardly, he shakes off his flashbacks of jerking off every morning in his cell with her name on his lips, hoping she doesn’t see right through him to those memories…unless she wants to.

“Admiral Cornwell and Ambassador Sarek have arrived with orders for a new mission we’re to undertake,” Michael informs him, refusing to meet his eyes as his soul sinks. “With your help, we can complete an undercover operation which will crumble the empire’s plans for our universe from within.”

“Kat…Sarek…charming,” he replies, voice dripping with sarcasm. He doesn’t need this today, or any day, but to get close to Michael again and find some meaning to his existence, it’s a necessary punishment.

“Ready room,” Michael orders as she stares at him for just one more overindulgent second. He knows she remembers him, too. Every detail. He follows when she turns on her heel, his jaw set, ready to confront what he must. 

“It’s an audacious catastrophe, you wearing that uniform ever again, even without pips,” Kat scowls immediately upon his entrance. Michael sits down and crosses her legs, hands perched primly upon them as her adoptive father hovers nearby, unmistakably protective. Dammit, that pointy-eared bastard always was supernaturally perceptive. 

Looking down at his attire, Gabriel shrugs. As ridiculously fucking uncomfortable as these tight, itchy uniforms are, it feels good to have one back on. He feels strangely at home here, in the last place he’ll ever be welcome. But then again, even a sore thumb needs someplace to stick out. 

“Good to see you too, Kat.” 

Cornwell slams him into the wall, her palm planted to his neck as he smiles calmly. Despite their little roll in the hay, which only happened because he needed to impede her perception of his duplicitous nature, Katrina Cornwell is not the woman who can give him an emotional and physical reaction with such a move. 

“It’s Admiral Cornwell, you miserable piece of fascist garbage,” Kat spits hatefully. “Now sit down and shut up while we tell you what to do. The sooner we can get you back to a life of staring at a plain grey wall, the better. And by the way, I was in charge of choosing your punishment. Yes, I guessed how much you must despise boredom.”

He definitely wants to punch her in the face, not only for the reminder that he’s been a narrow-minded, life-ruining asshole. But also for relegating him to that vile scumheap from which he’s just emerged. Settling for an unbothered half-smile, he answers, “Whatever you say.”

“Shall we begin?” Sarek inquires cooly, leading Katrina to back off as Michael still stares straight ahead.

“We shall,” Lorca agrees in a friendly tone that clearly houses a serpent. He sinks into the chair beside Michael but doesn’t look at her.

“In the wake of Emperor Georgiou’s departure, a new Terran ruler has emerged.” Kat flicks her fingers through the air, causing the ship’s computers to project an image of a square-jawed, roguishly handsome man into the center of the room. “Christopher Pike. In our universe, one of Starfleet’s most respected Captains. In theirs, a vicious despot who has quickly gained and profited off the reputation of being even more brutal than his predecessor.”

“Chris. That cocky bastard.” Lorca laughs dismissively. “He’s too in love with himself to see the bigger picture or get anywhere near that aggressive. Look at who he has as his second, his military advisor. Then you’ll find our shark. That’s who we target.”

“Commander Christine Chapel,” Cornwell announces, changing the image to one of a severe-looking young blonde. “She’s been by his side from the beginning of his reign.”

“Ohhh,” Lorca clucks in mock empathy, “You have your work cut out for you. That bitch is lethal. So what’s your whole undercover scheme? I’m just itching to get started.”

Only a tiny twitch about Sarek’s mouth portrays the man’s revulsion at Lorca. “You will arrive on the Charon, along with Commander Burnham and Ensign Tilly, under the pretenses of having survived the recent imperial coup. Offering your services to the new Emperor, you will do exactly and whatever they tell you to, reporting back to us as frequently as possible.” 

“Uh, that’s all well and good, but how do you know they won’t just throw us into agonizer booths and call it a day? Why should they even _want_ our services?” Lorca’s tone is dry as bones, lazily mocking Sarek’s suggested approach.

“I suppose you will just have to apply that skill which you so eagerly used when you ingratiated yourself to everyone on this ship,” Michael proposes, still staring blankly ahead. “You’re an excellent liar, able to spontaneously concoct complex and believable deceptions. Aside from your experience within the Terran empire, this quality is one that makes you a valuable asset to our mission.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Kat says crisply, nodding at them before she leaves with Sarek following. On his way out, the Vulcan pauses by Michael’s shoulder, waiting for the subtle shake of her head before leaving based on her expression that she can handle Lorca’s presence. 

Her father assumes that her discomfort around Lorca stems from the same betrayal which her former Captain inflicted upon the rest of the crew. Gabriel cannot help wondering what he would do if he ever found out the full story, and really doesn’t cherish the idea of learning the answer.

**********************************************************************************************

“Chris,” Lorca grins with convivial mischief once the Discovery hails the Charon and the game begins. He looks from Pike’s surprised, confused face to Chapel’s narrowed eyes on the bridge's viewscreen and adds with a second nod, “Chris. It’s been far too long, my friends.”

“You killed my brother, Lorca,” Pike scowls. “I ought to blast you out of space.”

“He also nearly crippled me in a training exercise,” Chapel smiles frigidly.

“First of all,” Lorca objects, feeling the heat of Michael’s gaze, loathing that revelations like this no longer shock her, that she expects him to have a violent and disturbing history. “Christine, that was a fight-to-the-death exercise and you know it. And here you are, alive — why? Because I’ve always liked you. And Pike, your brother had it coming; don’t pretend otherwise. Now can we get down to brass tacks?” 

Pike nods and Chapel just keeps smiling like a cat watching a mouse run around while she flexes her claws. She ought to be way too young to be this lethal, but not in an Empire that praises and cultivates bloodlust. In that sort of world, someone with her skill-set is fast-tracked.

“Anywho, we’ve taken over this wretched piece of Federation garbage called Discovery. Thought we’d head your way, Charon, and see what we can do to help take over this quadrant, stick a Terran flag into these stars and reap the rewards.” Gabriel holds his hands up, adding, “We have no wish to incite rebellion. After all we’ve gone through recently, I speak for my friends here as well when I say, we’re prepared to serve.”

“Do not _dare_ to speak for me,” Michael snaps, eyes blazing. Grabbing the back of Lorca’s head, she slams it down into the armrest of the Captain’s chair, yanking his hair as he yields to her attack, dying with ecstasy that she’s touching him in any context. “You are still my prisoner, Lorca, and that means that I am in charge, however valuable your abilities and experiences might be to executing the Terran takeover. I pledge my _own_ allegiance to this Emperor. Know your place.”

Gabriel lifts his head slowly to look into her eyes, watching her gaze track over his bloodied lip and brow, her own forehead furrowing at his gentle smile, as if she is baffled and deeply unnerved by his gratitude.

“So essentially, the pathetic dregs left behind by Georgiou’s final stand have gathered on a stolen junkheap to vow dubious allegiance to me, and we’re supposed to welcome you back with open arms? Captain Killy, what have you got to say for _your_ self?” Pike looks unconvinced.

Tilly rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. “I say cut the bullshit, Pike. You need us. Now you dickheads better roll out the welcome mat before we decide to take this quadrant for ourselves, and don’t you doubt for one second that we can. Do you really want us as enemies if you could have us on your side? Chapel, you’re the brains of this operation, tell him.”

Pike frowns at her suggestion, but glances at Christine, who gives a short nod. “Beam over,” the Emperor orders, “Just you three. Get rid of the rest of the crew and prepare to hand over your vessel once that’s done. We’ll refit her and get her in line with the rest of our new ISS fleet.”

As the screen goes blank, Michael pulls her eyes from Lorca’s and says briskly, “It sounds as if the Discovery crew is going to have to pull a stunt, perhaps use the spore drive to jump away before you can be boarded by the Charon?”

“Indeed,” Saru affirms, tapping his badge to contact Lt. Stamets. The Federation has worked hard on finding a way to activate the mycelial network without using a human host, but without success to date. For emergencies such as this, it is necessary to rely upon Stamets to get them where they must go.

Lorca follows Michael and Sylvia to the turbolift, and it is an awkward descent to the transporter room. Tilly speaks to Stamets through her badge, the two of them conducting a rapid-fire review of the spore drive’s current status to update the Cadet taking her place in assisting Paul today. 

“What is wrong with you?” Michael shakes her head at Lorca, “You seemed almost to enjoy being bloodied at my hands.”

“They were _your_ hands,” he explains simply, spirits plummeting when she glares, rejecting his affection immediately. He knows he needs to be much more patient, but he snaps for a moment, chafing against this new life of everyone hating him, especially her. He gives into his old attitude. “Why does my bloody mouth bother you, anyway?” He smirks, licking his lips slowly, flicking away the blood. “Want some?”

***********************************************************************************************

 _Yes,_ Michael thinks automatically, staring at his mouth. She shoves the instinct down with anger, backing him against the wall as Tilly, now done talking to Stamets, does nothing to prevent the confrontation. This seems like Michael's chance to end this nonsense between them once and for all, and she plans to make the most of it, even if she has to force out every bitter word.

“Maybe you want us all to believe you’ve changed, maybe you expect me to think you actually cared about me, really felt something on that shuttle. But we know you’re lying, _I_ know you are a two-faced, murderous con artist. Now, thanks to you we’ve got a new war on our hands. And I will you use you, or any other tool at my disposal to win it. That is the _only_ reason why you are here. Is that clear?” Michael does not touch him during this well-earned scolding; merely uses her proximity to keep him pinned to the wall.

“People have been slamming me into the walls since I got back here, and frankly since the day I was born, but this is the first time I’ve enjoyed it.” His blue eyes twinkle and she has to repress a smile, wondering yet again what is wrong with both of them.

“Listen to me,” she says in a fierce, low voice, though Tilly has mysteriously diverted her attention to a PADD, leaving Michael to handle this unless her assistance is needed. The turbolift reaches their destination, but Michael shakes her head. “Computer, hold the lift.”

“What happened between us was nothing,” she says through gritted teeth. “I’d just had my heart broken by learning the truth about Ash, I was in a terrifying new place, and I needed to blow off steam. I used you.”

**************************************************************************************************

“You used me?” He thinks she’s lying, but it still hurts. His face wants to crumple but he keeps a cool facade in place. “I guess it’s nice we have that in common.” Pathetic. She’ll never believe that after what he said to her that day in the brig. _“When we made love…I’ll never forget it. I’ll never be that happy again.”_ The truth is never more obvious than when it falls heedlessly from the lips of an otherwise confirmed liar.

“Computer,” Michael seethes, “Open lift doors.” She takes long strides to the transporter room, ascending to the platform and still avoiding his eyes. “The subject is closed,” she bites back at him.

The blue light roves over them and when they arrive on the Charon, they’re glaring at each other while the Discovery darts away. “Your conduct prompts me to ask you whether you realize that we are here on a mission,” Michael accuses.

“ _Your_ conduct makes me question whether you can actually think about said mission, or if my presence is just a little too distracting.” He crosses his arms and raises his eyebrows.

“Well, I see nothing has changed between _you_ two,” Emperor Pike says as he and Commander Chapel walk into the room with a coterie of armed guards behind them. “Bickering like an old married couple again.” He chortles. “Always wondered why you didn’t just make it official. It’s not like any of us believed you’d actually kill the other to get ahead in ranks. Now, if you’re not going to kill someone and you love them, well…” He blinks almost good-naturedly at Chapel, who does not respond. “Marriage!” he finishes reasonably.

“The Emperor has earned the right to the occasional tangent,” Christine says sharply, though her acid look shows that she’s most likely plotting to overthrow the figurehead at a moment’s notice.

“Perhaps he has,” Lorca allows, stepping down from the platform and extending a hand to Michael, who completely ignores him. 

Tilly snorts with derision. “I still don’t understand keeping a lover _alive_ long enough for petty bickering to come into the picture.”

“And _I_ don’t understand an Emperor and his second coming in person to the transporter room to greet guests. What kind of pathetically weak procedure is that?” Lorca scoffs.

“And how successful were you in claiming the throne, when Georgiou practically _handed_ it to you with her weakening resolve and her penchant for prioritizing family over brutally maintaining our chokehold on every other species over whom we ruled? I think we will pass on your leadership advice, Lorca.” Chapel smiles coldly at Gabriel, who merely laughs.

“Oh, please. I think that tight updo of yours must be causing brain damage,” Tilly suggests, nodding at Chapel’s white-blonde bun. “You two losers were just at the right place at the right time. If the other Michael Burnham hadn’t meddled in our plans, we’d be in your place right now.”

“She is only one woman,” Pike points out. “Who I trust is currently rotting in an agonizer booth. You must have brought that technology to this often depressingly simple universe, right, Gabe?”

“ _She_ is only one woman, but when that woman is any version of _me_ , the threat is appropriately grave to her enemies,” Michael corrects him. “Yes, my counterpart has been appropriately dealt with for preventing my love’s ascension to the throne. And don’t call him Gabe.”

Lorca fights a smile and says to Pike, “When do we get started, what can we do? I’ve got plenty of insider knowledge on the mycelial network, if that's of use. Of course, we could also just…take over Vulcan. They’ve got some marvelous resources. Qo’noS is in a weak and wretched sake after the war, they would fall easily. Where to?”

“He ever shut up?” the Emperor asks Tilly and Michael, looking as if he might be exhausted by too much time in Lorca’s company.

“Not often enough,” Burnham explains, the complete honesty of her words negating the need to lie which has otherwise dominated the discussion.

“It’s cute, really,” Christine says snidely, patting Lorca’s cheek as if she’d rather snap his neck, “That you three think you’re done being vetted. You think we don't see it as suspicious that you clearly told your crew to get Discovery away from us before we could claim it? You say you're loyal to us, yet you keep the ship with the spore drive technology _from us?_ Does it sound like you three? Sure. But you'll now have to work even harder to earn our trust. You’ll be ushered to quarters. Once there, dress appropriately for a banquet which the Emperor is throwing this evening to celebrate his recent capture of two Starbases, as well as the delightful sufferings of the officers who lived and worked there.” 

Lorca sees Michael subtly resisting the urge to flinch, though she maintains a look of casual interest. He wants to hold her until every memory of pain in her life, every fear of future trouble evaporates. But it’s most likely that he’ll never have his arms around her again.

***********************************************************************************************  
The guards lead Tilly to her own guest quarters right next to a larger set of chambers intended for Lorca and Michael to share. Sylvia’s eyes widen in shocked dismay, but they should have expected this, which Michael communicates to her friend with a tiny head tilt. Of course, Pike and Chapel assumed that Michael and Gabriel would want to room together.

“Be ready in an hour,” a burly male guard orders them, practically shoving the “guests” into their rooms before the door slides shut behind them, closing Michael’s gaze off from Tilly’s suppressed panic and the comparatively reassuring presence of the bloodthirsty, menacing guards.

Anything would have been preferable to this, her and Lorca standing in their black leather and their golden armor, completely alone and in accommodations expressly provided for them to have privacy to express their love. Michael is getting tired of summoning the energy to glare. Now that they’re alone, she doesn’t want to look at Lorca at all. It hurts too much and she has important work to do here. This banquet will likely be filled with high-ranking Terran officials and brimming with gossip about the enemy’s latest plans. She needs to be clearer than ever. 

“So,” Gabriel chirps, as if he’s trying to lighten the mood while they both look around the rather standard sitting room. Instead of the plain and serviceably welcoming decor generally laid out in Starfleet guest rooms, the room is filled with Terran war souvenirs. Weaponry lines the walls in a lurid display, and rather than the warm, yellow lighting favored on Federation vessels, there is a strange, dim red glow. He gives her an inappropriately sheepish look which she finds annoyingly cute. Then he makes his next mistake and opens his mouth again, lifting his hands out to the side in wry appraisal of the environment.

“This is cozy.”


	5. Keep saying I'm danger, but thinking I'm love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there is dialogue briefly referencing violent Terran torture.

“Don’t speak,” Michael says curtly, not managing to summon the appropriate amount of anger. He’s being absurd, acting as though their room-sharing is some exciting and delightful development instead of a disaster which she must grit her teeth to endure. 

He opens his mouth as if to add some apologetic comment, but she steps forward and presses her finger against those wayward lips of his. They are hot against her skin and she realizes she’s been wanting to touch them, that this is an excuse. Lorca looks at her in surprise and she whispers, half-irritably, half-weakly, “Don’t. Speak.” 

Gabriel looks sorely tempted to grab her wrist, extend the moment and help it transition into something more, but he doesn’t move. Slightly impressed with his restraint because she’s losing her own, Michael pulls away and walks off to the bedroom, calling behind her, “Change your clothes. Banquet. Fifty-seven minutes.”

Sighing behind the mercifully closed door, she sits down on the bed and presses the heels of her hands into her eyes. But his fascinated, aroused expression from moments before is still seared into her brain, impossible to get out.

“Computer,” she grumbles restlessly, trying to get her heartbeat to slow down and the insistent tension at her core to go away. “Show me some examples of appropriate attire for a Terran banquet attended by the upper crust of the Empire.”

It’s bad, so bad…Michael didn’t realize the day could get much worse, but it looks as though the night will be even more trying. The attire choices which flicker up in front of her in hologram form are…insubstantial. Tight. Shiny and binding. Thought-provoking. If Gabriel ever saw her dressed up like that…memories of her dreams of making love to him bombard her senses and she groans, lying down on her stomach and yanking the pillow over her head.

“Computer,” she manages after a few minutes of failed repression, “Please just replicate me a reasonably subdued version of whichever of these outfits is the least revealing.”

She’s never worn anything so snug-fitting, and has to lie down again to slide the tiny black leather dress up over her body, slipping her arms into the cap sleeves and heaving her elbows up to get the neckline into place over her breasts. The sleek, knee-high boots only make it worse, lifting the hemline to a near-scandalous height at her mid-thigh. Yet despite their high heels, the boots are surprisingly easy to walk in, which Michael decides reluctantly to accept as a silver lining. She remembers being in the Mirror Universe, and the way she had learned to find those tiny victories in order to keep the panic attacks at bay. It’s too strange, the way those old feelings of dread mix with nervousness about pulling off this mission and getting the intel they need…and how it combines with an unbearable undercurrent of anticipation about pretending to be Lorca’s date to this outrageous function. 

_The sooner this mission is over, the better._ She pulls on the gold sash which takes the place of the usual plate of armor over her chest, then says softly, knowing that only the computer will hear her vulnerability, “Computer, mirror.”

***********************************************************************************************

His eyes nearly pop out of his head when he sees Michael emerging from the bedroom in that minuscule dress, the slick fabric hugging her every sumptuous curve. He’s still pulling his plain black shirt over his head, grateful that it’s cotton instead of leather like his pants, and just as he does a double-take at Michael’s appearance, her eyes dart straight to his stomach before it’s covered by the shirt. They stand there mute for another few moments before Michael crosses the room and hands him his gold sash from the low table beside him. Gabriel endeavors not to stare when she bends over, especially because she watches to see if he will. Folding the sash into his hands, she murmurs, “Let’s get this over with.”

***********************************************************************************************

As opposed to their guest quarters, the banquet hall is too well-lit at first, a proud golden light shining on its tables laden in food and drink, staffed by melancholy Kelpiens. But even Michael’s heartbroken dismay at the servitude of the tall aliens is less upsetting than some of the chatter in which she must participate.

“That’s nothing,” Emperor Pike laughs, popping an appetizer which resembles a crab-cake into his mouth. Michael has learned not to examine the cuisine too closely, as most of the time it is far preferable not to know the ingredients. “Christine here once jammed a phaser rifle so far down a Tellarite’s throat, I could see the outline of it through his skin. It didn’t get him to talk, mind you, but the interrogation was going nowhere.”

“You’ll make my cheeks burn,” Chapel replies, looking anything but embarrassed. “The truth is that in these times, with filthy traitors lurking around every corner, you have to take your fun where you can find it.” She takes a neat sip of her alcoholic beverage, an insanely strong bright purple concoction which Michael has been avoiding since the first time she unwisely sampled a flute of it on the ISS Shenzhou and ended up painfully hungover.

Lorca is feigning mildly amused interest in Pike and Chapel’s bragging tales of torture, his gaze flitting repeatedly to Michael, silently begging her to believe he takes no enjoyment in such stories. She wonders why he keeps working so hard trying to achieve the impossible, trying to win back her trust. 

“I once fed Kelpien _to_ a Kelpien,” Pike adds blithely, patting his belly as if the hilarious memory is among his fondest. “His _face!_ ”

“Whenever you're done with the walk down memory lane, we’d love to hear what you’re planning to have us actually do here. Before we go off and find something better to do. The three of _us_ have managed to rise above our differences and become an effective team. Are you going to put us to work or what?” Michael knows that Gabriel’s confrontational attitude comes more from the desire to shut the two Terran fiends up than anything else. 

Glancing across the room, he sees Tilly making inroads with a general, her hands waving about in wild exaggeration of her own supposed past exploits. Great. Tilly is, in fact, a good officer. Back on Discovery, he’d eventually started treating her like a protege in earnest, much as he’d genuinely wanted to thank Paul Stamets for his beyond-the-call-of-duty selflessness. It was crazy instincts like that, coming to care for those Federation weaklings, that had scared him sober and made him stick to his original gameplan of going back to his universe.

Now, he’s downright proud of Tilly as she puts her finer moral instincts on the back burner and charms her way into the good graces of more and more Terran officers who circle around to hear her vicious tangents. And as for Michael…

He knows how strong she is — truth be told, a lot stronger than him and a hundred times better a person — yet there’s some unshakable protective instinct in him that wants to shield her from this whole situation, comfort and reassure her that this world won’t consume her again as it did when she had to masquerade as her Mirror Universe counterpart and command the Shenzhou. Back then, Gabriel could not be by her side; had to rot away in an agonizer booth waiting and wondering what she was enduring. Now it is different and too late at the same time.

When he returns his attention to the Emperor and Chapel, Lorca realizes with a slight jolt that they are waiting for him to reply. Michael quickly notes his distraction and says, “My love, I know you have little interest in the planet Earth as a military asset, but it is true that the alien interlopers to the Terran population must be extinguished. Earth should be purified.”

He gulps past the bile that rises in his throat at the realization that the Terrans are targeting the Federation’s homeworld and the planet which so many of its officers call home. They will need to convey this intelligence back to Admiral Cornwell at the first opportunity, but first he smiles broadly and proclaims, “I’m happy to go wherever I’m sent, as long as there’s work to be done in advancing our reign over this formerly haphazard, peace-sickened universe. It’s time these people learned what true order feels like. They’ll be grateful to us.”

“Indeed,” Christine says, reminding him just how many different fake smiles she has. This one says she doesn’t trust Lorca, Burnham and Tilly but will use them anyway. Just as Gabriel tried to use the crew of the Discovery, only to find himself irreversibly changed by the experience of knowing them.

“I would speak with you alone, my love,” Michael hisses, oozing with a Terran affectation that gives Lorca pause. She looked, just for one split second, like her deceased counterpart, which is something that hardly ever happens. The two Burnhams are so different in the key ways in which they see the world around them; it’s eerie to see her fitting into the role so well. It makes him question when, if ever, he himself resembles Starfleet Captain Gabriel Lorca, formerly of the Buran.

He’s so used to pretending and wishing he _is_ the other Lorca that he’s not quite as startled or embarrassed when the instinct starts kicking in again.

He follows Michael over to a buffet table which is by now so picked over that no one else lingers nearby. Still, he glances to the offerings and murmurs, “That’s actually just a normal salad, if you’re hungry. But stay away from the soup…and those ears…” He nods cringingly at a platter which is indeed covered in some sort of item matching that description, covered in a gravy-like sauce and served over a bed of lettuce as if it is perfectly normal.

**********************************************************************************************

Michael thinks she might finally have lost her mind because there’s no other explanation for what happens next. She laughs, turning bright eyes to Lorca’s own as her face finally shows him no resistance or hatred. “I was not planning to try _the ears._ "

It feels so good, letting go. She turns and presses her hands to the table, bursting into another prolonged fit of what might actually be termed _giggles._

He waits with a smile of tense adoration. Upon seeing it, she cuts herself off from the amusement, explaining, “I thought I would let them all see me enjoying myself with you. Keep the ruse going.” _Shit. He sees right through me._

“Mmhmm,” Lorca replies breezily, without judgement or pressure. “Why did you want to talk to me alone? Was that it? Maintaining appearances…” His eyes flit up and down over her outfit again, as if she’s emboldened him a bit with her laughter. The obvious admiration on his face gives her the thrill she’s been running away from all night. She keeps one hand on the table for support and presses her thighs together, but there’s nothing that can be done to stop the wetness between them, seeping out from her pulsing slit.

“I wanted to tell you to keep your head in the game,” Michael clarifies as sternly as she can, though the scolding comes out a bit awkward. “You were distracted, back there, when we were speaking with Pike and Chapel. We cannot afford that.”

The lights go out with no warning and she shivers, disoriented, while Lorca immediately steps closer protectively. He says nothing, just lingers in her space until that haunting red glow from their quarters fills this black-walled room as well, while in a back corner a distraught young Andorian woman serves as DJ. The haunting music she plays, a hybrid of jazz and triphop, is appropriate for the mood in the room as the Terrans automatically begin dancing wherever they stand and with whomever they desire.

Looking around for Tilly, Michael sees that her friend has avoided the dancing by returning to get more food at another table. Sighing in resignation, Michael takes Lorca’s hand, a shock of feverish desire going down her spine and landing at her core when she feels his slightly perspiring palm and the curling of his fingers around her own.

“Come on,” she says, leading him to the area where Chapel and Pike are dancing, slow and shameless, their hands all over each others’ bodies. All around them, as Gabriel stares down at her with his mouth half-open, eyebrows knitted in worry, the Terrans are behaving as if their clothing is suddenly an inconvenience, grinding erotically against each other, some of them even letting their moans and sighs become quite audible.

“Michael, we can’t,” Lorca warns as she puts her arms around his neck and begins swaying. He slips his hands to the small of her back, following the rhythm of her motion as their dancing, far more chaste than any other couple in the room, begins destroying both of them with the insanely foolish and completely undeniable need to get closer.

“Will you stop trying to prove some nonexistent point about being above all this and put your hands on my ass so that we fit in with everyone else?” But despite the impatient annoyance of her tone, her breath catches when he obeys her, his big fingers roving over her bottom in the tight dress. 

“It’s just,” he sighs raggedly, letting one hand remain on her derriere as the other lands at the back of her neck and he leans in to speak into her ear, kissing her just once, lightly at the side of her head until she thinks she might actually scream. “This is a ritual, and one we’d best excuse ourselves from before…oh, great.”

His sarcastic acknowledgement has to do with the way everyone around them has started flinging off their clothes, the music shifting into a faster tempo as Michael pulls back from Lorca with a slightly horrified expression. Not much around here surprises her, but this is wild even for the Terrans. Wild, and unsettlingly inspiring.

“When you choose a dance partner, you choose your mate for the night,” he explains, his voice full of concern for her and the need to portray distaste for the orgy which is gradually blossoming around them.

Michael looks at him with a complicated and quite transparent urgency, the bizarre temptation to simply join the others in this mad fray and let him do what he will with her body unraveling her. She fights to control her rebellious thoughts, which are beating out relentlessly in her heart and her by now soaked center, trying to find some thread of elusive logic to grab onto, though only his broad, firm body is within immediate reach.

“Where is Tilly?” she murmurs throatily, peering past his arm into the shadowy carnality trying to locate Sylvia. If they’re to get out of here before things get any more embarrassing, she needs to make sure Tilly is safe.

“This hideous music is giving me just as much of a headache as the boring, tame stories you’re all bragging about as if you have a clue what real power is,” Sylvia is loudly proclaiming, rolling her eyes and pressing her fingers to her temple. Her intentionally grating tone is such an annoying interruption to the sensuous mood that Pike shouts back to her, “Why don’t you leave, then? You always were a pompous buzzkill, Killy.”

Sylvia catches Michael’s eye and blinks hard several times, indicating that she and Lorca should also make up some excuse to escape this ridiculous scenario. “Let’s get out of here,” Gabriel urges softly, tugging her hand as he leads her to the exit. 

“And now where are _you_ two going?” Christine calls after them, suspicious.

“To find somewhere more private to continue our encounter,” Michael explains briskly. “I don’t like to share, and no one else is going to see what _I_ see of my love this night.”

“You’re boring,” Pike snarls, going back to his feral, near-assaulting groping of Chapel as Lorca and Michael slip out into the corridor, breathing too heavily.

“ _Whoa,_ ” Tilly mutters as the three guests make a hurried beeline for their quarters, “What the hell is wrong with these people? I mean, don’t even answer that, everything is wrong with them. They can’t even offer us anything halfway decent to eat that doesn’t look like they just cut it off a humanoid victim, they won’t shut up about how awesome they are at torture, and now they’re all just gonna _go at it_ like that, right in front of each other? I’m a liberal-minded girl, but that is just getting a little too freaky, even for me.” She stops her rant as they reach their rooms, noticing the intense vibe between Gabriel and Michael.

“Michael, are you…is everything okay? I mean, God, I know nothing is okay, but are you going to be, for tonight?” Sylvia is dressed similarly to Michael, her hair straightened and silky over her shoulders as her eyeliner-laden gaze pops sharply, trying to determine what is going on and if there is something she needs to do to help. 

“Yes, I am going to be fine,” Michael answers, touching Tilly’s arm to soothe her anxieties. With Lorca standing there strong and unwavering in his devotion, and the way this day and night have eroded her resolve to resist him, she realizes that she actually does feel more confident that they will get through this charade and succeed in their goals. “Let’s all just get some rest.” 

“Ohhh…kay,” Tilly answers uncertainly. “I can’t wait for this mission to be over. I’ll get in touch with you-know-who about the you-know-what.” She taps her nose and Michael smiles.

“Goodnight,” she says as Sylvia disappears into her quarters. Michael doesn’t have to look back to know that Gabriel trails closely behind her as she walks into their rooms. She can feel the heat of his body and his eyes on her.

When they are alone again, he says, “You must be exhausted.”

“Are you?” Michael asks thoughtfully, pulling off her gold slash and tossing it onto the table in the sitting room.

“I’m tired all right,” he confirms, shaking his head and giving that telltale little flinch of his facial features which Michael has come to know as a sign that he is suppressing a great burst of frustration. “Listen, why don’t you take the bed, I’ll sleep out here.”

_What does he mean, ‘I’m tired all right?’ If he is actually tired, then why is he still looking at me as if he wants to tear my dress off and take me on the floor? And is he so completely incapable of reading my cues that he expects us to simply go to bed now, separately?_

Perhaps Lorca’s obnoxious politeness stems from respect for her, the respect she always used to feel from him before learning of his betrayal, the regard which now she understands to be sincere. But Michael doesn’t want his respect and his regard, not at this moment, not after that dance, dammit. It makes her angry.

“No,” she snaps, startling him. Storming into the bedroom, she grabs one of the pillows and a silky blanket, adding, “You don’t get to be the gentleman after all you’ve done. I will sleep on the couch.”

“Goddammit, Michael, stop being stubbornly absurd,” he argues, grabbing her elbow. He yanks the pillow and blanket from her and insists, “You’re not going to get a back ache sleeping out there, not on my watch. Like I said, _I_ will take the couch.”

She glares at him, trying to take the bedthings back but finding that his iron grip around them makes it impossible. They stand there for another few moments, wrestling the pillow and blanket back and forth with silent aggravation, the real battle between them raging hotter, angrier, and needier than ever in their locked eyes.

“ _Give_ them to me,” she pleads, falling into his power, his control, as he throws the items down harshly.

“No,” Gabriel repeats solemnly, allowing her to read his true meaning clearly: _No, I will not stop loving you. I will not stop hoping there is a chance for us. I’ll never let you go._

As he takes her body aggressively into his arms again, she goes along willingly, opening her mouth under his as he kisses and tastes her, as his hands roam hard and daring over her body, scooping underneath her ass and lifting her off the ground. As she flings her arms around his neck, her legs encircle his back and his lips burn into her, hungry and greedy, even more so than she remembered.

“Gabriel,” she moans as he lowers her to the bed, kissing her neck and tilting his weight into her just enough to elicit excruciating pleasure as his hard-on grazes her center under the hem of her dress which he’s shoved up impatiently. “Gabriel.” She clutches his shirt collar, gathering folds of the fabric into her fingers, twisting and pulling the garment as he keeps kissing, now starting to bite and suck at her neck. 

“Say it again,” he growls, “Say my name over and over, Michael. And then tell me exactly what you want from me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title taken from the song "Shivering Gold" by Tove Lo


	6. Darker than the ocean, deeper than the sea

“I don’t want to feel this for you,” Michael says angrily between kisses, yanking his shirt up over his head and tossing it away. She pulls him back on top of her, pressing her hands into his back and following the motion of his grinding against her cunt. A cry of pleasure flies out from her lips before he sucks her bottom one, then looks down at her body with wanton admiration, pulling her dress up to just under her breasts.

“I want to stop needing this…” Yes, they are her words, but her soft moaning and the writhing of her half-clothed, feverish body into the sheets speaks many more volumes. Lorca’s body is so imposingly strong, his eyes and lips so demanding, she wants to give into every wicked thought that’s ever crossed his mind about her. He kisses a hot, wet trail from her ribcage to the lowest point of her belly, making her hips thrust upward, needing too much of him too fast. _Now._

“Are you so sure? Because if that’s the case, we can stop,” he suggests, going along anyway when she presses his hand to her pussy above her panties, wanting his palm to touch her molten heat, pulsing for him until he pushes back and forth, stroking her with long, firm motions of his whole hand bent into her wetness. Her panties slide against her, too, and she brings his head down towards her own, kissing his mouth with abandon. He goes on rubbing her, then shifts her panties aside before muttering in her ear, “Is it true? That you don’t want to feel this, baby? Are you so sure?”

“Don’t stop,” she begs, “Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop…” She’s close to tears with the tense, pounding, sopping pleasure he evokes so easily from her. “I know it’s wrong, but I do need you…so badly…”

“Wrong?” Lorca’s voice is softer than soft, almost gently understanding. He kisses all over her face as he slicks his fingers up and down at her entrance, then sinks two in easily enough that they both feel reminded how ready they’ve both been for this all night. Stroking inside her, teasing her clit and biting down on her shoulder, he adds, “Does this feel wrong?”

Michael arches her back and sighs raggedly, lifting her hips again, fucking his fingers as he delves deeper, but even that’s not enough. She reaches out for his pants, unbuttons them and pulls them down as he gives her a look of slight surprise. Her wildness is such that even he has to work to keep up. 

“You know it’s wrong, you know _you’re_ wrong,” she reminds him. “And I don’t care, not tonight — because I want all of you now, and I can’t wait. Give it to me, Gabriel.” He pulls his dripping fingers out and lifts them to her mouth, hovering over her.

“Taste that, Michael. Put the flavor of your need for me on that sweet, naughty tongue and then tell me how it makes you feel.” He isn’t being playful or trying to prove a point, doesn’t seek to elicit some admission of surrender from her. Neither of them are remotely unaware of their collision course and it is too late for pride or mischief to taint their love. Lorca just thrives on her expressions of feeling, of lust for him, so deeply that the addiction makes him bold, exacting…just the way she likes him best.

She takes his hand and stares deep into his endless aqua eyes, inserting his fingers into her mouth and lavishing her tongue around them, savoring her juices with a hunger that astounds her. The sense of erotically unravelling him with this act is such a thrill, the feeling of his large, rough fingers in her mouth so good that she keeps licking, starts sucking them rhythmically and goes on long after she can’t taste anything but his skin. 

He stares at her as long as he can before her behavior makes him snap and he slides his fingers back out, using them to clasp her face, telling her intently, “You showed me how it feels, now tell me.”

“I…” her voice sticks in her throat, and the slamming of her heart, the pulsing of her cunt are both making her body shake, making her scratch her nails down his back, bringing her legs around him again, tugging him as close as possible. “I still feel everything for you that I always did. Take me. Give me what I want, don’t make me wait any longer.”

The confession, paired with his skin smarting under her nails, makes him gasp and grunt, drawn downward by her heels against his back until he reaches to unlock her ankles. “Yes, baby,” he promises darkly, standing up just long enough to get his trousers all the way off, kicking them away. 

“I’m in love with you,” he adds huskily, climbing back up on the bed. “Take off that dress.” She obeys, watching him watch as she pulls the second skin of a garment the rest of the way off. “Now the bra.” She unclasps it and tosses it to him; he catches it and briefly strokes the cups, feeling the heat of the places where her skin pressed against it, where her breasts, swollen with need for him, made the cotton hot. He places the bra aside and says, “You always knew I loved you. And you liked the feeling. Even after…you knew all about me.”

“Only one part of that was untrue: I don’t know all about you,” she insists, “You need to show me. Then I’ll know.”

He hovers between her hips and pins her wrists to the mattress, the familiar sensation of his dominating posture comforting Michael beyond measure. After all of that time trying to hate him, she’s finally home again, where she belongs. The logical part of her mind sees the problem with this emotional reaction, this sexual need, but the drive inside her to adore him is so powerful that it hushes the voice that whispers, _”There is no future in this except for more heartache."_

Lorca’s kisses are teasing, then, when he knows he has her with a greater certainty than ever. She shivers as he brushes his mouth against hers too lightly, her frustration making him hotter as she leans up to try and claim his lips more fully. He’s holding her so firmly that she can’t grab onto him like she wants to, and it’s terrifyingly sweet torture.

“Something the matter?” he drawls, tickling her neck with almost chastely brief kisses. She wants his teethe and his tongue again, closes her eyes and tries to give into his pace, retain some tiny bit of pride, but fails miserably.

“You know what I need,” she pleads, opening her big, shining eyes and staring at him helplessly. 

“Oh? Do I?” he takes mercy on her and bites her neck once, looking back at her face. “A little of that, maybe? ‘Please’?”

“Please, Gabriel,” she gasps, not knowing how much more of this she can take. The insistent throb between her legs makes her whole body tremble. 

He sees her shaking and lifts one hand from her wrist to pull the sheets over them before regaining his hold on her firmly, then rests more snugly against her body, biting up and down her neck with slow, lingering satisfaction, sucking and kissing her skin until she’s clearly marked as his once again. 

“You’re delicious,” he sighs, marveling at her smooth, pretty skin as he strokes every wet mark he’s left on it. “I haven’t stopped thinking of this, not once. Or of this…” He lets her wrists go so that he can slither beneath the sheets, pulling off her panties, parting her thighs and dipping his head between them, lavishing her pussy with long, soft licks as she grips the sheets and sighs, so turned on that he probably won’t need to do much more to make her come. It’s incredible, this effect he has on her. 

Sliding his fingers back inside her, Gabriel only has to arc them up and stroke a few times before her body clamps down on him and her hand lands on his head, twisting in his hair as she cries out his name, her orgasm sharp and fast, too fast. 

His head reemerges from the sheets and he’s staring at her, a little startled. “Well, that wasn’t good enough,” he says regretfully, rubbing her belly and then cupping her breasts. “I think we can do much better than that. Right, sweetheart?”

She laughs then, tipping her face up to the red-lit ceiling, lost to how surreal life has become. “You dork. You lying, two-faced, life-ruining bastard. You come into my life, you _find_ me when no one else was looking, save me, teach me how to believe I deserve redemption, then take me to hell and expect me to thank you for it. Who does that, who establishes a shamelessly selfish, destructive track record like _that_ and then turns around and wants to call me ‘baby’ and ‘sweetheart’?”

Gabriel gives her that look again. The fucking puppy dog eyes. “I’m sorry, Michael.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” she warns, “Just get over here.” She wraps her arms around his broad, strong shoulders as he kisses her, tender at first until they both break and need the roughness again. “Take me,” she whispers as he kisses her wonderfully sore neck again, “You want me to say please? Then _please._ ”

“I need to make it last for you this time,” he says throatily, sighing with bliss as he guides his cock inside her velvet folds. “ _Fuck_ …. goddammit, baby, yes.” He pulls back and glides in and out, fastening his grip around her arms, holding her down just as much with the demanding look in his eyes. 

They say nothing more, just breathe chaotically and gaze at each other’s haunted, needy faces as he fucks her with languorous care. The minutes slink by in a haze until her legs are so shaky that they fall from his back, landing wide open on the bed, making him growl at the sense of his power over her. 

“Get up,” he insists, pulling out of her and turning her over, pressing her down to the bed with a hand at the small of her back. Sliding back in, he grunts with satisfaction at the deep penetration of this new angle. 

Michael rests her burning face against the pillow and moans. The pleasure is so strong but the position lacks the intimacy, the closeness to his body which she craves, the possibility for better eye contact. As if he reads her mind or loses patience with the same aspect which has bothered her, Lorca pulls her up by the hips. “Get up, on your hands and knees, now,” he orders sternly, his voice tight with restraint, with making himself wait to drive into her as hard and fast as he wants to.

She complies, looking at him over her shoulder as he guides his cock back in. “Yes,” she whimpers, “Like that. Oh! _please._ "

“Mmm,” he answers, taking her by the hips and yanking her body back against his, slowly at first…then he picks up speed, gasping as she gets even wetter and he sinks deeper still. His fingers grab into her bottom, clasping it tight enough to leave prints behind and she moans so immediately at this change that he pulls his hand back and slaps her ass. He keeps fucking her but waits to see how she reacts before spanking her again. She cries out with a soft squeal. It’s all the encouragement he needs.

He spanks her almost each time his cock drives in, doubling her pleasure until Michael comes, mouthing his name as the forbidden ecstasy, the raw, perfect wrongness of it all robs her of sound. Her pussy tightens around his cock, coating him more thickly than ever with her nectar, throwing him over the edge as well. He’s still pulling her back against him by her ass, stroking and massaging her soft cheeks now as he explodes inside her, panting.

When he pulls out, he lays down beside her, staring as she lies still, breathing deeply, staring back at him. Then he reaches for her and hugs her tightly, pulling the sheets and blanket over their bodies as he rubs her back with soothing, circular motions, her face resting against his pounding heart.

Michael can’t help what happens next; this is a dream come true and that includes the difficult aftermath. She bursts into tears, but this time it isn’t only a bleak surge of depression at how much she loves him. It’s also the warmth of his tender embrace, the way his demanding lovemaking segues into cuddling, the transition as fluid as breathing. There’s something cathartic in crying right in front of him, her tears streaking his bare chest as he looks down at her in concern.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, like he hates himself. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have started this up again; I never should have even let you kiss me on that shuttle.”

She slaps his arm, sobs shaking her body. “That’s very astute of you!”

The sarcastic, accusing words come out broken and strong at the same time.

“Michael, just tell me what to do and I will _do_ it,” he pleads, cupping her face and wiping her tears with his thumbs.

“Make the right calls this time. Follow your better instincts, the part of you that wants to care. Let go of the selfishness you keep using to block out the chance of getting hurt,” she answers immediately because she has already given the matter a great deal of thought. 

“And you think I can do that?” Lorca wonders, biting his lip, looking into her face as if it holds the answer, as if he can’t quite bring himself to find that truth within. 

“Me thinking it shouldn’t have any influence on what you do, or how you see yourself,” she sniffs. He laughs and she shoots him a critical look.

“Sorry, kick me out of bed if you want, but how am I _not_ gonna look to you to assess my own moral character? You’re the best ethical barometer I know.” At his words, Michael’s tears stop.

“What did you just say?”

“I said, you’re the best moral barometer—” Gabriel begins, but she cuts him off. 

“Not that part, the other part.”

“Oh. You mean when I said, ‘kick me out of bed if you want’?" He starts feeling a bit worried by the direction of the conversation.

“Best idea I’ve heard all night,” she says casually, planting her foot on his thigh and pushing hard, shoving him right off the mattress.

He’s sprawled on the floor beside the bed, rubbing the back of his head and looking up at her in annoyance. “Um, ow.”

She slinks down to the floor and climbs on top of him again, snuggling up and yanking a blanket from the bed to pull over them. Yes. This is perfect, just right. They don’t belong anywhere. They can’t be together here, they can’t be together on Discovery, there is no version of this that will ever be acceptable. But they will always be together no matter how far apart they are. So she smiles into the poetic justice of it, the sloppy post-coital mess of them clinging together on the floor, his slowly comprehending chuckle.

“Do you believe me when I tell you I’m sorry and I wanna change?” That beautiful, sensuous rumble is back in his voice, tickling her lips when she kisses his throat.

She props her head up on her two hands folded over his chest and considers.

“Yes. Do _you_?”

“I’m starting to,” he admits, and she can feel the truth of the words in his steady gaze, the way he holds her…it’s real. 

“Then start working on earning my forgiveness and trust.” She sits up, straddling him, and extends her hand. 

Gabriel shakes her hand firmly, then pushes up on his elbows, smiling at her as if she is a goddess, a queen, _his_ dream come true in every way. “Thank you, Michael.” 

Then his face changes completely when he happens to glance up towards the ceiling, a jolt of panic striking him as he says urgently, “Get under the bed.”

“What?” Michael repeats as he slides out from under her and points desperately. 

“The bed, get under it — now! And cover your nose and mouth, don’t inhale the air.” She looks from his angry and terrified expression to the subtle cloud of smoke starting to pipe into the room through the temperature control ducts. “What is that?”

“Dammit Michael, do as you’re told,” he insists, clearly familiar with this sort of attack. She frowns and slips under the bed, lying on her stomach and breathing into her hand until the gas in the air can dissipate. 

But in his haste to ensure she’s out of the way as the gas descends to the more open part of the room where he’s still lying, Lorca hasn’t counted on how fast he will be effected himself. He passes out, head hitting the floor with a resounding smack that horrifies Michael. 

Before she can go to him, make sure he is alright, a group of Terran security officers in gas masks troop in and carry Gabriel out with them. They scan the room but do not seem anywhere near as concerned with finding Michael at the moment.

Michael stays prone, waiting for them to leave before she comes back out, still covering her face as much as possible while throwing some clothes on — her usual Terran officer uniform this time. She makes a beeline for the door and peeks out to find the corridor abandoned. Strange. Damned peculiar. In fact, it makes Michael think there’s some kind of carefully structured plan at work. It seems that the Emperor — or more likely Chapel — have contrived to give their guests exactly enough freedom to feel safe, a deceptive invitation to relax. Perfect for swooping in and catching them unawares. 

She presses the console beside Tilly’s quarters and repeats her friend’s name several times before she gets an answer. 

“Whaaa-whaaat?”

Michael can just picture Sylvia finally wrestling herself from her typically deep snoring slumber. She answers the door in a daze with flushed cheeks, her previously glamorous and silky red mane now comically rumpled. Stretching and yawning, she does a double-take at Michael’s panicked face.

“What’s going on? Where are your pjs, first of all?” Tilly squints at Michael in confusion. 

“I’ve been foolish. Distracted,” Michael admits tensely. She slips past Sylvia and waits for the door to close before adding, “Didn’t you wonder why security failed to accompany us back to our rooms after the banquet?”

“To be honest, I thought they were probably screwing each other in public, since that’s apparently what people do around here for fun,” Tilly admits, sinking down on the couch. 

“We’re being tested. By Chapel, almost certainly. Pike doesn’t have the vision or the organization for it. Sometimes having us closely guarded, sometimes letting us roam free…she’s seeing how we act, what we do…and Lorca must have some specific value to her as an asset.”

“What makes you say that?” Sylvia is wide awake now, deductive analysis filling her blue eyes as much as discerning empathy for Michael's situation.

“Our quarters were just gassed. He was taken.” Michael paces, thinking out loud. “I have to find out where, but we need a plan before we barge in on whatever she’s up to.”

“Well, Chapel and Lorca have a past together, we know that much,” Tilly puts in. “We should start there.”

The thought of digging any further into Lorca’s murky past frightens her, but if it’s the only way to save him, then Michael will commit to the endeavor. She nods resolutely. “Yes. Let’s see what we can learn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title taken from the song "Electric" by Alina Baraz.


	7. Logic and Destiny

“This is boring,” Lorca groans, standing naked in a claustrophobically snug glass cell as sand slowly pours in over him. He stays to one side of the steady stream until he’s hip deep and Christine Chapel makes her appearance, walking in with a smirk.

“I’m sorry we can’t keep you better entertained,” she snarks, “But it’s not really our top priority.”

“Oh, come on. At least throw a few ceti eels in here or something. You’re _weak,_ Chapel. A disappointment. But then, reputation notwithstanding, that’s nothing new.”

He knows her weakness, the only one she has: her ego. The way she wants everyone to think she’s above defeat. 

“And you’re predictable.”

_Cute._ She’s called him the one thing he most certainly isn’t.

“You used to hit on me back in the day. Wanna know why I never reciprocated your flirtation?” He lifts his brows, the mocking look in his eyes making her bristle. “I got nothing against mean-spirited, power hungry bitches. Hell, _I_ used to be one. But no one wants to date themselves, you know?” His tone is that of the most casual conversation despite the sand now filling past his belly button. “Turns out I have a bit of a weakness for good girls.”

“Now who’s boring?” Chapel counters, pressing her fingertips to the glass and looking at his upper body over with appreciation. “This is a real shame, Lorca. Just aesthetically. A loss. So why don’t you tell me everything you know about the Norrimond Collective and I’ll let you get back to your sad little forbidden love affair with Burnham? You know Pippa’s still out here in this ‘verse, right? Bound to catch onto you two lording your relationship and hunger for galaxy domination around these parts. And she’s not as nice as me.” Pouting in reciprocation of Lorca’s condescending attitude, Christine nods to someone out of sight and the sand stops piling up.

She’s referring to a cache of intel on rebel activity which he’d retrieved on a past mission and kept hold of so that when he took hold of the Empire’s reins, he could be the one to almost effortlessly defeat the enemy once and for all. It seems so petty now that he doesn’t understand how his brain used to work. Now he’s started caring about protecting innocent lives, guided by exposure to Starfleet and Michael’s influence, and he couldn’t seem to stop.

“I’m not giving you shit on the Norrimond Collective, Chris. So you may as well just crank that back up.”

He crosses his arms gingerly above the sand and avoids the instinct to glance up in fear. After all, he’s great at pretending these more drawn-out forms of torture and potential execution don’t phase him, but everyone has a limit. You just have to find it, and he doesn’t need Chapel getting that from him now.

They stare at each other for another few beats, her steely and him jovial as can be. But they both know one of them is going to have to flinch soon. Lorca blinks, leaving his eyes closed long enough for a single tender thought to flash across his mind.

_Come and get me, Michael._

********************************************************************************************

“Oh my God, is there any information in these archives that’s _not_ redacted?” Tilly asks, throwing her hands up. 

“Very little of the information in these files is permitted reading material for your rank and standing in the Terran Empire, Captain Tilly,” the Computer replies crisply.

“And I’m assuming that goes for me as well, Computer?” Michael asks, hovering over Sylvia’s shoulder as the latter sits at the desk in her quarters, both of them staring at a PADD screen laden with blacked-out text.

“It goes double for you, in fact, Captain Burnham.”

“Damn, this ship’s computer is sassy,” Tilly sighs. Burnham balls up her fists and heads for the door, done playing nice.

“Wait—“ Tilly cries nervously, “Where are you going?”

“To confront Pike and get the situation in hand,” Michael explains, her voice smooth though pure fire runs through her veins and her head is throbbing. The adrenaline racing through her system is too much to be borne: she _must_ take action to find and save Gabriel now.

“What are you doing?” Michael demands frustratedly as she is admitted to the Emperor’s quarters only to find Pike packing a traveling bag with clothing.

Pike blinks at her slowly. “Well, hello to you too, Burnham. Hope you and Gabe enjoyed your little solo romp last night. Sorry we all missed out on watching, though. Maybe next time?”

Michael presses her lips together, swallowing a tirade and narrows her potential responses down. “Maybe _never_ , and do not call him Gabe. Now. Where are you going?”

“Uhhh…home?” Pike scratches his head, looking at her infuriated face in befuddlement. “The plan was always to leave Chapel here to enforce our domination of your universe, then for me to head back once I had overseen the development of the plan. I can’t be away for too long; I’m sure there must already be someone sitting in my throne, and it probably isn’t the person I left in charge. So, you know…gotta go kill that person. Anything I can help you with first?”

Burnham wonders just how in the hell this man ever rose to power. He has all the threatening prowess of a phaser stuck on stun. She takes a split second to guess that family influence and military assets might have propelled him through the ranks along with his moral ambivalence making it easy for him to kill his way to the top. But it doesn’t matter, not really. She’s too busy to care.

“You can tell me where Christine Chapel is, because she has Lorca and I want him back _now,_ ” Michael informs him boldly. “From what I’ve been able to glean after reading through some files on incidents in their shared past, it was a point of contention between them that he let her live after she lost that supposed ‘fight to the death’ training exercise.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Pike nods, zipping his bag. “Huh. What’s she doing with Lorca? I told her to leave you three alone and wait to see how useful you were when it was time to attack and colonize Earth, and if you balked, _then_ to kill you.”

Michael walked straight up to him and grabbed his shirt front, glaring. “Where. Is. She?”

Her grip doesn’t faze him, partly because he is completely desensitized to violence and partly because he’s realizing something about his second in command.

“Lorca’s got information she wants, and she chose not to let me in on it.” Seeing his irritation rising at Chapel’s betrayal, Michael breathes a sigh of relief, releasing him.

_Well, that’s useful, anyway._

Pike walks to the wall and takes down a deadly-sharp sword, sheathing it in the belt by his side. He frowns, straightening his sash. “Come on.”

***************************************************************************************

When Pike rushes in with a team of guards, plus Burnham and Tilly on his heels, Lorca is up to his nose in sand and looks at Michael with wide, grateful eyes previously bulging in panic.

Chapel throws her hands up in consternation, nodding at her own separatist guards to attack Pike’s, but the numbers aren’t in her favor. As the Emperor’s team wipes hers out, Michael runs to Lorca’s cell, staring in panic. Pike tosses his sword to Michael as the mutinous forces lay writhing in agony or dead on the floor. 

“Here, go for it,” the Emperor encourages casually as his guards hold Chapel still.

Michael rams the hilt of the sword against the glass repeatedly until it shatters, sand pouring out as Lorca stumbles forward onto his knees. “Thanks,” he coughs, beating his throat.

“Uh, guys?” Tilly chirps up quietly, glancing at Pike. She’s been working with Lorca and Michael long enough that they both easily guess her meaning based on the context of this scenario.

“She has a point,” Lorca says hoarsely, glancing up at Michael. “All things considered, don’t you think we should…”

Michael nods, passing Lorca her sword and rounding on Pike, easily stunning him with the phaser he’d given her to prepare for this attack on Chapel, the element of surprise taking him completely off-guard. Meanwhile, Tilly stuns Chapel as well. The guards are numerous, but they weren’t ready for Lorca’s savage battle skills, and after he’d felled a few of them the rest backed up, gulping with that generous capacity for cowardice which characterized Pike’s fleet.

“Good idea,” Gabriel quips, crouching by Pike and unbuttoning the other man’s trousers. “I’m just gonna steal his pants,” he announced, still somewhat hilariously naked except for the sand coating his body.

“Ooookay,” Tilly murmured, keeping her eyes averted. “So what are we going to do with the Charon?”

“Yes, Specialist Lorca,” Michael said intently, crossing her arms and watching as Lorca shrugged the pants on and met her gaze. “What are we going to do?”

She half-expected him to steal the Charon and take it back to his own universe. The old him might have even kept her and Tilly there above their objections, too. Michael wondered again how she could possibly love a man who had ever been capable of such darkness, but the light in his eyes now was undeniable. Her heart lifted.

“We hand her over to Starfleet, of course, Commander, along with Chapel and Pike,” Lorca answered easily. “You two go home to Discovery, accept yet another commendation. I get shipped back to the bottom of the scummiest rock in the quadrant to rot until the next time my intel might come in handy. Doubtless whoever took over in the Emperor’s rather foolhardy absence will know about our universe, maybe try to do a better job of taking us over. Less dancing, more shooting. Y’all might need me again, you never know.” He gave a smile that was more like a facial twitch and winked at Michael.

They were to be parted again, but they had both always known the moment was coming. Still, it wasn’t here yet.

***************************************************************************************

“We gotta stop meeting like this,” Lorca smirks, crossing his arms and standing as usual right in front of the forcefield of his cell as Michael enters Discovery’s brig the next day. “Sorry — have I used that line yet?”

She rolls her eyes with a low chuckle he’d earned more through her relief at seeing him than anything else. Her heartbeat picks up speed at the sight of him, but she can also breathe more easily. It begs the question of what she is going to do about her oxygen supply in his impending absence, but she declines to ponder the matter as of yet. There is a time and place for everything, especially grief. Especially loneliness. Why waste what little love they have left to enjoy between them in this precious respite? Soon enough Gabriel would be shipped to a prison colony to finish his sentence and she would have to simply go on with her life. Somehow.

“What’s my baby thinking about now?” Lorca inquires, cocking his head to the side, intrigued by the conflicted emotion on her face.

“Perhaps I am not thinking at all,” Michael counters archly, “Perhaps I am merely feeling. It would hardly be the first time you evoked such a reaction in me.” She lowers the forcefield, looking at him steadily, her eyes shining with that same strange, sad happiness. “You’re to be confined to quarters for the remainder of the journey,” she adds softly.

“Suppose you had something to do with that,” he suggests, immediately and shamelessly stepping into her personal space.

“I suppose that’s obvious,” she concedes, leveling him with a shy half-smile and almost accusing eyes. _What are you doing to me?_ She must have asked him that in her thoughts a million times by now. But there was something else to consider. Crossing her arms, she adds wryly, “What am I going to do with you?”

His forehead creases, the weight of their impending separation already starting to bear down on his consciousness. He wants to enjoy every second he has left with her and knows that the only way to experience such happiness is through the pain that tinges it.

“Show me to my quarters, Commander?” he asks.

“I think you’ll much prefer where you’ll be serving out the remainder of your sentence,” Michael offers as they walk briskly to his room, ignoring as best they can the acid looks of most crew members who pass Lorca. 

“You mean it has better amenities than the last place? Impossible. I had my own bar of soap,” he cracks as they enter his guest quarters. 

“Lights, 60 percent” Michael smiles as the room floods with soft illumination, the humor at his joke not reaching her sad brown eyes. “Admiral Cornwell was encouraged by the fact that you turned yourself back in when you had the opportunity to try and get away,” she adds, going to the replicator.

“You’ll be sent to a much more comfortable place; it’s on a lovely, rustic property where you will be allowed to walk daily. Would you like something?” Michael asks, ordering herself a tea. She places the steaming mug on the glass-topped table in the center of the room, avoiding his gaze, unable to deal with his usual intensity at the moment, not when she’s discussing the reality of their situation.

“You’re going to drink tea right now?” Lorca inquires huskily, going to her and taking her hands, which are still warm from the drink she’d cupped.

“I don’t know what else I can do,” Michael admits, sighing in frustration as he kisses her fingers one by one, though she does not rebuff him or his irresistible lips brushing her skin, which is always so hypersensitive where he is concerned. “Please, Gabriel…”

“I love you,” he murmurs, letting go because he’s learned how. He smiles. “Does that still scare you?”

“I love you, too,” Michael replies tremulously, “But does that change anything about our destiny?”

“Unknowable,” Lorca smiles, lifting an eyebrow and crossing his arms. “You of all people ought to know that such a thing can’t be quantified, except by whatever happens down the road. Unless we get audacious and go ahead and quantify it emotionally instead of in terms of what it means we get to have together, whether we get to tie the knot and serve side by side for many years of fabulously romantic adventures in some fantasy where I’m magically accepted as the guy I once pretended to be, a true blue Starfleet officer and someone worthy of you; or whether we live apart with just the sliver of a hope we might get to briefly breathe the same air again for a few days at some point.”

“You of all people should value destiny above common sense. However, were I to ‘quantify it emotionally,’” Michael allows, smoothing her hands over his shoulders and then caressing his arms until they encircle her waist and his fingers press distractingly to her low back, “I would have to say you saved me. I didn’t believe in myself after the Battle of the Binary Stars and you…hassled me into trusting my instincts again.” They both laugh as her fingers sweep his cheek, her expression deeply thoughtful. “You brought me here and it was here that I again found family and purpose…happiness,” she adds. “You also betrayed me, betrayed us all, but I see you trying to be better.”

“Maybe that effort changes nothing,” Lorca shrugs.

“Even Admiral Cornwell thinks it deserves a slight acknowledgement; even Ensign Tilly told me you might not be the ‘actual worst asshole ‘she’s ever met; when told of your actions on the Charon, even Commander Saru gave a barely tolerant grunt and nodded without his threat ganglia emerging. Lieutenant Commander Stamets even said, 'huh. That's weird. But then, so is Lorca.'”

Gabriel chuckles. “They’ll all breathe easier when I’m gone.”

“I won’t be able to sleep,” Michael worries, remembering how it was the first time.

“I want you to go on living,” Gabriel urges gently, “Whatever’s meant to become of this love will be, and in the meantime, you have a pretty fantastic life here with good people who need you. I don’t want to keep you down…I just want you to be free and happy; that’s all I ever wanted, even if I showed it very badly, even if I convinced myself I could ever keep you with me out of blackmail or trickery and be happy myself. I was an idiot.”

“That is putting it lightly,” Michael confirms, blinking tears away. “Perhaps it will be different now. When you were sent away before, everything between us was left unresolved. Now at least I know it’s real and not just some twisted delusion of my heart.”

He kisses her lips softly, as he’s never done before, without any possessive pressure. Michael finds that quite illogically, she misses his domineering passion and wants it back, wants all of him.

“You should see other people, move on,” he whispers against her lips as her fingers drive firmly into his hair and her other arm snakes around his waist, her nails lightly trailing his back until he shivers and gasps.

“Shut up,” Michael orders, kissing him, feeling him give into his natural impulses as their lips part and their tongues tangle, him lifting her up in his arms, tightly holding her back and groping her ass as he carries her to the bed and sets her down, then climbs on top of her. She cradles his body with her legs, then scratches his back more aggressively as they both moan and she yanks his shirt off. 

“I thought this time might be gentle,” she admits, clasping his face in her two hands.

She’d pictured it, the sad, lingering lovemaking, the goodbye sex, the knowledge that it was almost certainly the last time…now she feels the impossibility of tamping down the wildness of their connection even as the flame ought to be flickering out.

“Mmmhmm,” Lorca grins at her, then lavishes her neck with hot kisses, nipping her skin and licking at it as her hips jerk up against his and she moans, tugging his trousers down as they both kick off their boots and wriggle out of their socks, toes moving with an almost comically synchronized speed. 

He practically rips her uniform off and tosses it away, then kisses her tempestuously all over her body, cupping her breasts and sucking her nipples, stroking his tongue down her stomach, worshipping her every curve. His big hands trace her hips and then grab them firmly, smoothing his touch down over her thighs as she lowers her legs and spreads them, roving her fingers through his hair and trying in vain to control her shaking.

“My baby,” Gabriel declares, ducking his head eagerly between her thighs and licking her slick folds. “So beautiful.” He’s so intense even at his tenderest, and when he tongue fucks her, she comes hard and fast, then grabs at him desperately, guiding his erection inside her as they both pant and sigh. 

It goes on and on excessively, and they can’t seem to stop until they’re too physically exhausted to do otherwise. Then they just cling together, her head pressed to his chest, his arms encompassing her slender form as her eyes drift closed without another word. Michael’s breathing slows from chaotic to steady, her face peaceful as Gabriel smiles, arranging the sheets and blankets over her and closing his own eyes knowing no dream that may await him will compare to this moment of impossible solace. He wishes he could follow into her dreams and just stay there forever.

*****************************************************************

As before, the days threaten to morph meaninglessly into each other once Gabriel is back in prison, though he keeps fit and maintains useful connections with the guards and fellow inmates, though he reads voraciously, remaining sharp-witted and at the ready. Because one of these days he knows he’s going to turn around and see Michael standing there, there to get him and bring him with her again, off somewhere among the stars where they both belong. He knows he’s still useful, a valuable source of intelligence, that Pippa’s presence in this universe alone is enough reason to suspect Starfleet might have need of his skill-set in the not-too-distant future.

He envisions it, running miles through the caged-in woods by day, and later poring over lines of Shakespeare that cover the gamut of his worst sins, his best inclination towards redemption and his most haunting passion until the PADD blinks out every night when his reading time is up and it’s lights-out. No matter; he still sees her face in the darkness of his cell; he feels her love in every breathe as he lies there prone and ready. Waiting.

That way, he can keep going. He won’t lose faith that he’ll be with her again no matter how fleetingly. She’ll be there and he will get the chance to prove himself even more this time, maybe inch just a little closer to freedom. Will she have met someone else? He’ll understand. That’s probably for the best, but when the time arrives she will want to come and get Gabriel herself. Either way, their eyes will meet and they’ll hug as if no time passed at all. Every day is another chance to better himself to become ready for Michael, to inch just a tiny bit nearer to deserving her friendship and trust even if they’re never lovers again.

But to make it through the time apart, he gives himself the indulgence of suspecting they’re soulmates and that they can’t be together without crashing back into love. 

So on the day when it finally happens, when he stops short running knowing she’s there just behind him; or when he wakes with a start just before she’s admitted into his cell, he’s completely ready.

And he’s not surprised at all.


End file.
